Unknown Contact
by ecarden
Summary: The obligatory Mass Effect-XCOM crossover, just set a little earlier than most. The Migrant Fleet is looking for new worlds, new tech, new allies. Humanity would very much like to not be exterminated by aliens from beyond the stars. SYNERGY!
1. Chapter 1: So Many Unknowns

**Chapter 1: So Many Unknowns**

Commodore Niva'Zorah vas'Hatak looked over her domain and was pleased. A squadron of the finest frigates in the Patrol Fleet and her flagship, the cruiser _Hatak_.

 ** _Codex: Hatak Class Cruiser, Unlocked._**

Formerly a Batarian vessel, she had led the team which captured it, during her Pilgrimage back when she'd been nar'Levshepa. The vessel had been spotted raiding in the Terminus and the Hegemony had explained to the Citadel Council that the ship had been sold out of their military years ago, providing documents to prove it.

 ** _Codex: Live-Ship pilgrimages, Unlocked._**

That had somewhat limited their options when she and her crew had stolen the heavy cruiser right out from the yard which was repairing it after an ill-fated attempt to raid a Hierarchy convoy. Still, the traditional Batarian temper meant that whenever the Migrant Fleet was passing near Hegemony space, the _Hatak_ got sent on the longest patrol route that could be imagined, with strict orders not to come back until the Fleet was well clear of the four-eyed slavers.

It was definitely about the Batarians and not about Niva's temper. It was mere coincidence that she'd been assigned the youngest and most hotheaded officers, except for her second-in-command, her elderly, staid cousin, Semmi. Or so the Admiral had said, when asked. Niva was well aware of the reality of the situation and didn't even really object to it, though she felt that her reputation for savagery was a bit unfair, setting the slavers on fire had been a purely tactical decision and she'd only done it once.

Still, she didn't fight her reputation, partly because it was useful to the Fleet to have someone with that reputation (especially someone who wasn't actually insane) but mostly because it got her commands like this one. A detached command scouting future routes for the Fleet. Eight frigate analogues scattered around four systems while the _Hatak_ acted as the command ship.

She glanced over the command screens. The _Hatak_ was functioning properly, despite the dearth of spare parts and none of the frigates would be returning for at least a week. The _Hatak_ and her shuttles surveyed the mostly empty system, looking for any resources worth mining if the Fleet chose to pass this way, but the system contained a gas giant and a remarkably useless asteroid belt. The only item of interest was the planet orbiting close to the main sequence star. It was reading as denser than usual composition would explain, suggesting some heavy element.

The Fleet didn't generally engage in planet-side mining, but if the materials were valuable enough, it might be worthwhile. The problem was that the world was so close to the star that the hull would melt with any lengthy exposure to the sun. So the _Hatak_ hung on the other side of the planet, using it as a parasol. It took a tricky bit of flying to stay there, but nothing beyond the capabilities of her crew. She had challenges aplenty, but none beyond her capabilities. Mistress of all she surveyed, Captain and Commodore, she was what she wanted to be and where she wanted to be. The future led only to Admiralty that would take her from field command. This was a perfect moment.

In the weeks to come, she would often remember that moment and wonder if she'd cursed herself with thought. For it was then that alarms began to scream as the _Lorion_ dropped out of FTL, tight-beam communications hit the _Hatak's_ communications system at the same moment that the light from _Lorion's_ arrival did.

They hadn't bothered with a voice link, instead it was downloading massive quantities of data into the larger ship's system as Niva's bridge crew burst into startled action, pulling the _Hatak_ out of orbit, weapons spinning up. Standing orders were for the exploring frigates to stick together. One coming back alone was a big red flag. On the other hand, Niva's eyes ran over the _Lorion_ , there was no sign of battle-damage. Finally, the flash-download stopped and there was sufficient bandwidth for a voice-and-video link.

The helmeted head of Diol Tirion vas'Lorion appeared. Niva, an expert in reading body language through the suit, could see the tension coming off the young officer in waves, but his voice remained even. "Niva, in exploring system TS129A, we detected heavy electromagnetic radiation and discovered a world teaming with life." He brought up a hand and projected an image of a world, brilliant blue and green, with several thousand artificial satellites tagged in orbit.

 ** _Codex: Quarian Body Language Unlocked_**

Niva's eyes rose, there were no orbital docks, or other suggestions of interplanetary, let alone interstellar travel. One moon, but no sign of any sapient presence there…

A lost colony, perhaps, but that seemed unlikely, given the location and the lack of mass effect fields. Maybe the system lacked element zero? Or could it be that they'd located a new species? The Citadel would give much for such information, especially so close to Batarian space, where the Hegemony might have botched the first contact. Indeed, give the Asari another species to chase, and maybe they'd pry loose enough forces to help the Fleet take back Rannoch, or at least give them a system of their own…Niva's mind raced, until she forced it to focus. Diol would tell her what happened soon enough.

"They appear to be a previously unknown species," his omni-tool projected an image of a bizarrely familiar creature, almost Quarian in general appearance but with none of a Quarian's natural markings and, Niva blinked, far too many fingers. It was subtly disturbing in a way the more obviously alien creatures were not.

"Where did you get the images?" Semmi interjected, the older man looking far more disturbed by them than Niva allowed herself to be (or at least be seen to be).

"The majority of their communications are unencrypted. We believe them to be some sort of entertainment, or religious broadcasts. The _Pathine_ remained in system to continue gathering data and expand the data the translation VIs are working with."

"So we haven't translated the language yet?" Semmi said, surprised that Diol would report back without a full picture of the situation.

"No, because approximately two days after our arrival, the local moon was in position between where our ships were observing and the planet. At that point we saw this," Diol pulled up another image, filled with two dozen small ships, none of them larger than a frigate, which were hiding behind the moon.

 ** _Codex: Passive Extra-Planetary Observation and Espionage Techniques Unlocked_**

"Other observers?" Semmi asked.

"Invaders, we believe," Diol continued before Semmi could ask the obvious question. "Because approximately an hour into our observation, this occurred." The image changed and one of the ships simply vanished, without bothering to build up momentum to make the jump to FTL. A new image appeared of the planet, with the missing ship appearing again in low orbit. Niva's eyes automatically compared the time stamp, it had made the transit instantaneously, without otherwise moving, that was…impossible.

Semmi caught it to, body language screaming surprise as he muttered inaudible questions about the impossibility they had just witnessed.

"Yes, they have some mysterious alternate means of FTL travel, which does not rely on element zero. We detected no element zero on planet, or in the fleet," Diol explained to the question they were shooting for.

 ** _Codex: ?-NO FILE FOUND—ERROR_**

"What—how—but—" Semmi was stammering desperately.

Amusing as Niva found it to watch the staid older officer struggle for words, that was mitigated by her own shock, which she kept a tight grip on. If Diol knew how the drive worked, he'd have said so and wouldn't have referred to it as a 'mysterious alternate means of FTL travel.' "You said they were invading?" she asked, prompting him to move away from the impossible conversation.

Semmi tried to break in, but Niva shot him a look and waved him to a computer console where he could examine what information they had at whatever length he cared to. Diol nodded and manipulated his omni-tool and the ship raced towards one of the coastal areas of the planet and dozens of small craft rose to meet it. They were clearly designed for travel in atmosphere, without element zero cores. She'd seen their like in historical designs, but nothing like them survived the discovery of element zero, which negated the need for aerodynamic designs.

"These vessels are local craft, they're minimally armed, with guided missiles. Their ECM capacity is minimal, however the invaders do not appear to take advantage of that. They also," missiles launched from the craft even as Diol spoke, "do not have shields," a handful of the missiles impacted the ship, "but their armor is extremely powerful and-"

Niva did not hear the rest of his statement, because she was busy being distracted by the invader's vessel spitting what appeared to be plasma at the defending ships. In atmosphere, that wasn't such a great weapon, as the ball of plasma was reacting to the gasses of the atmosphere, radically reducing accuracy, slowing the projectile and causing the originally small ball to spread out.

However, despite the many problems atmosphere caused, the shot was so powerful that the impact of the near-lightspeed burst of dispersing plasma took out the two vessels it hit, almost vaporized them in fact, and the sudden increase in air temperature melted a wing off the nearest craft.

Niva's mind abstractly noted the various problems, then realized that the projection was artificially shortening the distances between the various craft. The engagement was actually taking place at long range (for an atmospheric engagement), which just made it even more clear how powerful the weapons were (or how fragile the atmospheric craft were, or both).

While the small attacking ship was swaying around in the atmosphere like its pilot was drunk, it still managed to pick off the remainder of the squadron of attacking ships, only to fall as two small craft raced up behind the attacking ship, carefully keeping clear of its front mounted plasma weaponry and unleashed a flurry of short-ranged kinetic shots which must have damaged the attacking ship, sending it careening down to the world it had assailed.

They lost sight of the ship as it passed through the cloud layer, as even the advanced optical systems of the scout frigates wasn't able to see through clouds and the more advanced scanners wouldn't work given how far away the gas giant the frigates were hiding behind was from the planet. Diol brought up a different set of images, lower resolution, probably local broadcasts, given that they were focused on the pale figure of a native, then swaying over to a scene of figures with shockingly different skin tones, but all wearing blue uniforms fired primitive projectile weapons at the various invaders, to a disturbing lack of effect, as there were none of the tell-tale shimmers of shielding. Armor and flesh were shedding the projectiles easily. Worrisome.

There were three main species amongst the invaders. Giant green aliens who towered over the natives and their fellow invaders. It was hard to get a feel for scale, as she didn't know the size of anything. They wielded heavy plasma weapons, _handheld_ plasma weapons. The green energy they spat punched through buildings, barricades, cover, and soldiers alike, leaving behind screams, blood, corpses and fires.

The second were smaller even than the natives, let alone the giant green invaders. They moved in packs and were naked, revealing grey skin, almost like a Quarian's. She would have taken them for some sort of attack animal, though at least they had a closer to appropriate number of fingers, except for the fact that they were also wielding small plasma weapons. These were falling to even the primitive weapons the natives were using.

The third were insect-like and scuttled around, easily slashing locals apart, making no distinction between the armed soldiers and the fleeing, panicking, locals. Their skin seemed to repulse the small weapons fire, but as Niva watched, a tracked vehicle with a heavy mounted cannon pulled up and blasted a group of them to pieces. For a moment, it seemed the tide had turned, but then the green aliens turned their fire on the tank. The first shot melted the tracks into immobility, the second fused the turret in place and melted the secondary weapons. A hatch popped open and one crew member tried to get out, only to be picked off by a burst of fire from one of the grey invaders. Screams echoed from inside as the rest of the crew began to cook as the barrage of plasma fire heated the armor and interior of the tank. The crew burst forth as best they could from a hatch, but none of them made it to cover.

Niva made herself speak, "Well, that's interesting…"

"I saved the best for last," Diol said, speeding the video up as the aliens secured a perimeter around the crashed ship, losing more than half their number, but eliminating the forces which attempted to handle them. Half a dozen soldiers dropped onto the battlefield from a VTOL aircraft, which suppressed the remaining aliens, then fled before they could return fire. As one of the green aliens popped up to fire at the fleeing craft, it went down again under…laser fire from three of the soldiers.

"Lasers? Handheld lasers?" Niva squeaked, drawing the attention of everyone on the bridge.

 ** _Codex: Energy Weapons, Unlocked_** **.**

"Yes, ma'am," Diol agreed.

She watched the natives advance under heavy cover fire, pushing the remaining invaders back into the ship where a brief, hidden firefight could be heard, then the assault team withdrew, carrying two of their number, one still and clearly dead, the other injured and, if its body language was anything like the other sapients she knew, then it was swearing up a storm as it dripped shockingly red blood on the ground, despite its companions attempts to seal the wound. "Keelah…" Niva whispered.

"Yes, ma'am," Diol agreed again, voice filled with heartfelt sincerity.

The reminder of her rank and position snapped her out of her shock and her eyes narrowed. "Okay. Captain, do we know why the other ships didn't come to rescue the downed one?"

"No, ma'am, immediately after we saw the end of this battle, I returned here to inform you."

"Understood." Niva had already made the decision about what to do. All that remained was to come up with a way to explain it. Fortunately she didn't need to do that for a while. The words would come to her. Now it was time to act. "All courier crews to shuttles, orders will be on your displays when you arrive," she broadcast throughout the ship, then turned back to Diol, "I need a rendezvous point within one jump of the system you've discovered," she ordered.

The captain had anticipated her order and sent a location instantly. A quick check confirmed it as a good choice, less than a day from where a secondary mass relay could drop them out. She took a seat and typed out quick orders sending the shuttles to gather the remaining ships of her flotilla at the rendezvous point. Then she had the hard message, the one back to the Migrant Fleet. They were almost a month out from the Fleet, so that would be her justification for acting without permission. She just needed a justification for the specific action she was going to take, that was not going to be easy.

The Admiralty Board would see things her way, after all, she was a product of their training and they had promoted her to Commodore, but convincing the Conclave that her actions were correct, and should be supported was going to be trickier. She'd need help for that. But first things first, she dispatched three of the courier shuttles to bring back the rest of the ships in her flotilla and snapped orders sending the _Hatak_ speeding towards the rendezvous point.

 ** _Codex: Quarian Government Unlocked_**

Then she went to talk to Semmi. The older man was still flicking through the images, demanding more information than the passive observation could provide. He'd come up through the technical side, only achieving his current command rank due to his familial and Conclave connections. Usually Niva resented that, but at the moment, it would be useful in figuring out how to explain herself to the civilian government, as the blunt truth would probably not serve.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Hatak-Class Cruiser_**

 _The Hatak-Class is a new class of anti-piracy cruisers designed and built by the Batarian Hegemony. The vessels discard the spinal mount most cruisers rely upon, as it isn't expected to fire on dreadnaughts. Instead, it has an expanded array of GARDIAN lasers and maintains a quintet of heavy, FTL-capable assault shuttles, each armed with anti-vehicle mass accelerators and able to carry almost twenty fully armed soldiers._

 _Despite the ignoble fate of the class's namesake (sold out of service almost immediately as it didn't fit the usual roles of a cruiser, lacking the CNC capabilities of a frigate-pack leader, or the firepower of a battle-line vessel), the class has proven remarkably successful at handling pirates. Certain commentators believe that this is because the vessels are essentially scaled up versions of pirate vessels. And it is certainly true that sold, or captured Hatak class vessels are great prizes amongst the pirate community._

 ** _Codex: Live-ship Pilgrimages:_**

 _Though most Quarians go out on their pilgrimages as soon as possible after reaching maturity, seeking the privileges and potential rank which come from being an adult, the Live-ships, having so many more inhabitants and so much traffic as they constantly feed the Migrant Fleet, instead send out their Pilgrims once every half-year as a group. They are not required to stick together through their Pilgrimage, however they tend to._

 _They also tend to go for spectacular results, in order to justify the return of everyone in their group. This has resulted in a great many successes. Even amongst them, Niva'Zorah's capture of a heavy cruiser and destruction a pirate ship-yard, with a mere two dozen Quarians stands out. The group deployments may also explain the somewhat higher survival rates of the Pilgrims off the Live-ships, though it does mean that when they fail, many die._

 ** _Codex: Quarian Body Language:_**

 _The original suits worn in the Migrant fleet were cobbled together space-suits, environmental suits and hazardous materials suits. The one thing they had in common was that they were bulky and concealed the vast majority of their occupant's movements, as well as their skin. The Quarians adapted, gestures becoming broader and broader to actually be visible to those they were speaking to._

 _Though the current generation of suits reveal far more, most of the older generation of Quarians still make broad gestures, while their younger counterparts try for a more minimalistic approach. Indeed, a main-stay of current Quarian comedy is demonstrating how either an elder, or a youngster (depending on the age of the comedian) would communicate in a given situation. This brand of humor does not travel well and is generally viewed as incomprehensible outside the bounds of the Migrant Fleet._

 ** _Codex: Passive Extra-Planetary Observation and Espionage Techniques:_**

 _Given the distances involved and the complete lack of any FTL sensors, passive extra-planetary observation is difficult. The easiest way to do it remains classical sapient-intelligence. If you have someone in the ships you wish to observe, than all that is required is a communications route, which may be obtained in any number of ways._

 _However, when dealing with an unknown, the standard technique is to drop in for a moment, examine everything you see, making sure that you leave before the light from your arrival can reach the sensors of anyone present in the system (or at least before they can respond to that light with cannon fire). Then, depending on what you see, you make an FTL jump away, turn around and jump back, placing yourself behind some stellar body which will block the light of your return._

 _Then placing small, hopefully undetectable satellites in orbit around the body, you poke your head out and scan for what you can find. This waiting period is the most dangerous, as, if detected, the locals have plenty of time to drop a fleet out behind you and pound you to scrap before you can build up sufficient momentum to escape._

 ** _Codex: Energy Weapons:_**

 _The only effective energy weapons are the GARDIAN lasers which are used as a point defense weapon. The power requirements mean that these are only mounted on ships, or in fixed positions where they have power-plants to draw upon. They are effective because mass effect shielding has no effect on them, and, travelling at the speed of light, they'll hit their target the moment the target sees them fire. Experiments with mounting them on terrestrial attack vehicles have not been particularly successful, as their low rate of fire (due to heat build-up), the swift diffusion of lasers in atmosphere and high expense left them vulnerable to being swarmed under by cheaper, cannon-equipped tanks, or infantry._

 _For these reasons, hand-held energy weapons have long been a goal of all major militaries. The short range of most combat, constrained by urban locations, or ship corridors makes the diffusion problem minimal and soldiers trained to trust their shields would be easy prey to soldiers armed with weapons which would ignore those shields. The power problem has proven insolvable, though there has been some success with removable heat-sinks for the vehicle mounted lasers, with automated reloaders cycling through heat sinks, radically increasing the fire rate._

 ** _Codex: Quarian Government:_**

 _The Quarian civilian and military governmental structures are intertwined to an extreme degree. Unlike the Turians, where the military is the government, or the Asari, which separate the two structures, or the Salarians, who also separate the two (except for the STG, which is the exception to many rules), the Migrant Fleet's structure does not provide sufficient space between the two. Rather than attempt to maintain the previous distance, the Fleet accepted integration between the two._

 _The Conclave is made up of elected representatives of the various ships. One representative is elected from each ship, and then a number of others based on population. This means that a coalition of the smaller ships can carry the day, but the Liveships which are the heart of the Fleet will almost always win if they are unified on an issue._

 _The military vessels also have representatives in the Conclave and many members of the Conclave are actively serving members of the (formal) Quarian military, as well as members of their ship's crews (who will fight to defend themselves as all Quarian vessels are armed as best the Fleet can manage). This integration seems to function mostly due to the outside pressure of a hostile galaxy and the internal pressure of knowing that if things ever get too bad, any ship can simply leave._

 **Author's Note: Holy crap, a Mass Effect cross-over which actually crosses over in the first chapter? Way to go, me (this is a reference to my other Mass Effect crossover, where its almost 150,000 words before the crossover portion actually occurs).**

 **Comments and reviews are always welcome. In X-Com it was never entirely clear to me if they were trying to cover-up the invasion, or just X-Com's existence. There was a lot of talk about cover-ups, but things also showed up on TV broadcasts...**

 **Let me know if I've missed anything, or you spot any mistakes.**


	2. Chapter 2: Ally Unknown

**Chapter 2: Ally Unknown**

The _Lorion_ was the fastest and most maneuverable of the frigates of her flotilla. It was a little painful to transfer her flag from the _Hatak_ , but it was necessary. Fortunately, she'd managed to get Semmi over as well, so she hadn't had to leave her beloved ship in his hands. Her third officer, Adas'Ganu, was a competent, if aggressive, officer she could trust.

Fortunately the _Pathine's_ observations and V.I. had given them a functional, though probably not elegant, translator for the two most common native languages and Rena'Nara vas Pathine, the ship's electronic warfare expert had traced numerous communications from the most elite of the native's troops to a single structure. The communications were encrypted, but not to a standard able to defeat the processing power of an, almost, modern frigate.

First contact, with an unknown alien species, under attack by an entirely different and equally unknown species, by just about the last person, besides a Batarian slaver, that the galaxy would have chosen to make first contact…

After a great deal of debate, rather than attempt some delicate bullshit that would probably convince a group of probably correctly paranoid soldiers that they were being played, Niva was just going to break into one of their non-combat communications and do her best. After all, she'd been briefed on everything they'd been able to get out of the decrypted communications, which wasn't much, as even behind the encryptions it was a wall of acronyms, code-words and pure nonsense that barely made sense, even with the translator program.

"Attention, X-Com personnel, this is Commodore Niva'Zorah Vas Hatak of the Quarian Migrant Fleet. I apologize for the intrusion, however our scouts detected what appears to be a planetary invasion occurring. Is that correct, or is this some internal matter?"

A light voice responded after a second of shocked silence. "This is the Commander of the X-Com project. That is correct. We are being invaded. I assume you are not with them?"

"Correct. As I said, I represent the Quarian Migrant Fleet, I have no information regarding your invaders, except what our scout has detected."

"And how are you speaking English?" the voice asked, with a deceptive calm, if Niva could read tone through the translator and across species. The question was straightforward, intended to begin the process of gathering facts which would reveal inconsistencies, if she chose to lie. Which she would not.

"I am not. One of our scouts remained on station while the other returned to me. Based on the broadcasts, a translation program was created, which I'm currently using. Do you know why you've been attacked? Have you had any communication with the invaders?"

"N—"

Another voice broke in, this one deep and unreadable. "The Council will handle this matter. Defense is your responsibility, speech is ours. Why are you here, Commodore?"

"There are moral, cultural and political reasons, but the reason which affects you is quite simple. The technology we've detected is different from ours. Superior in some ways, inferior in others, we would like to access that technology in order to improve our own. We are prepared to ally with you in order to gain that access, both because your enemy is obviously acquisitive, aggressive and bizarre and because we haven't been able to detect any communications, or decode their language."

"And in exchange for access to the technology we've captured, what do we get?"

"I will land the frigate I'm on and provide samples of our technology, as well as experts in various fields. Those experts will provide training and assistance to yours in exchange for your experts providing the same to us. In addition, for the duration of our…technological exchange, I and my scout flotilla will assist you in defending your planet. I have a single cruiser and eight frigates."

Silence answered that, as they attempted to figure out what a space-cruiser and space-frigate were and how they stacked up against the invading ships.

"Before you make a decision, there are two additional facts you should know. First, though I represent the Migrant Fleet, I am not the final decision-maker for it. I have sent a message to command. It will take at least two months to get a response. If that response should order me to withdraw, then I will obey. I do not anticipate that outcome, but it is possible," her voice was lapsing into the awkward, pseudo-academic style she adopted when speaking with the Conclave. Better to be clear, than misunderstood.

"Understood," the Commander put in, with a tone that indicated actual understanding.

"Your second point?" the Council Spokesman asked, neither agreeing with the statement, nor disagreeing with it, not even acknowledging it, merely noting it as having occurred and adding it to his mental files on Quarians and Niva.

Niva projected an image onto the screen, showing almost thirty ships, varying in size from the smallest scout ships that had attacked Earth to the larger craft which had launched abduction assaults, or terror attacks, and still larger transport craft, with shuttles buzzing to the other ships from them. In his hidden office, the Council Spokesman's hands shook, though he hid every other reaction. In the X-Com Situation Room, the Commander didn't react at all as his mind raced to calculate the sheer number of aliens that fleet represented, without even considering the firepower the ships themselves possessed.

"I am uncertain why they are attacking one at a time, but there are quite a few of them hiding behind your moon, and more arriving every few days. However, that's our problem, I will take care of that."

"If we have a deal?" the Spokesman asked, voice layered with irony as he considered the question of whether any of his experts would be able to detect alterations to the image if it was done by extraterrestrials with unknown technology.

"No. I'll take them out either way. If we don't have a deal, I'll take everything we get from them and leave your space, as you wish. If we do, then we'll bring the salvage back to your base to be worked on."

"I thought you had nine ships. Do you really think you can take out all of those?" the Commander asked, his light voice deliberately dubious, attempting to get a feel for the capabilities of her ships.

"Yes," Niva said bluntly.

There was a moment of silence as the Humans considered whether they wanted to try to push this, even over an encrypted channel, which was, as proved by Niva's presence, not as secure as they'd previously believed. Then they considered why Niva had shown them the fleet at all, if interception was feasible. Before they could decide to ask anything, she continued, requesting landing coordinates.

 **XXXXX**

Semmi and Dr. Shen were talking math in the corner of the Foundry. Dr. Vahlen was there, but the younger woman was staring at the element zero core and muttering about its pure impossibility as she ran power through the core, watching the mass of the SHIV she'd attached it to fluctuate, driving it into the concrete floor so hard it cracked, then letting it float up. She seemed to find that oddly hypnotic.

Their supply of element zero was apparently extremely limited, but they'd provided an element zero core salvaged from an aircar (the mere reference to which had almost sent Dr. Shen into a sketching, designing frenzy which ended only when it was pointed out that they didn't have a large enough EEZO core to lift anything with enough armor to venture anywhere near a battlefield). Apparently the element was relatively rare and didn't degrade significantly with use, meaning the scout ships only had small excess amounts for repairs and the somewhat larger amounts they'd managed to mine or salvage while scouting, but not enough for widespread use in construction.

 ** _Codex: Migrant Fleet Scout Flotilla Activities, Unlocked._**

What ground forces the commodore had available she'd unloaded and placed under the command of the Commander, but the Spokesman had balked at letting a dozen heavily armed and armored aliens into the base, so they'd been shuttled to the regional airbases, to provide security and support. Some spare armor and weapons had been provided for X-Com's study, but until she understood how Element Zero worked, she couldn't even look at the shielding and mass accelerators. It would distract her. Still, she'd heard about it and some part of her was already working on designs for improved armor which could handle the plasma and laser weaponry of the invaders.

In turn, various Quarian scientists were down in the Elerium generator Dr. Shen had finally managed to get working, examining the power output and the Elerium itself with almost equal awe. Its absurd power generation was far beyond the fusion/fission/solar/geothermal plants that powered Citadel Space and far smaller. They were already considering the various usages for such a material and how it could be replicated.

Another group of engineers were down in the Workshop, experimenting on the Alien Alloys. They were not nearly as impressed as the others, though the materials were extremely durable, they didn't do too well against thermal energy, which was obviously going to be a major part of all future engagements and, even worse, were relatively rare. Though per-inch it was stronger than the Quarian's armor, it was so rare and difficult to work that you could outfit a platoon of troops in equivalent (if heavier) armor for the same expense as creating a single suit of armor out of the Alien Alloys.

Several of Dr. Vahlen's acolytes were directing various scanning and recording devices at a young Quarian male, the only 'biotic' amongst the group they'd dropped off. The man had some sort of bizarre powers, able to move and affect matter, similar to the way some of the aliens had proven able to affect the minds of their attackers, or the minds of their allies…the parallel worried some, the rest took the view that if the invaders had that sort of power, they'd have used it already, just as they had so many others.

The Commander sat in his office, flicking through the security feeds, watching the scientists talking, experimenting, and boggling. A slight smile crossed his plump face. Great things would come from them, he was sure of it. All he had to do was buy them the time they needed. And now he finally had help. Soon it would be time to reconsider his contingency plans and where the Council fit in them, or the extent to which the sixteen self-appointed guardians of the planet would be permitted to continue giving orders. But that was for later, if the Quarians proved as effective as he hoped.

 **XXXXX**

Semmi and Dr. Shen were experimenting with the two weapons X-Com had managed to capture intact and an extra suit of Quarian armor. Meanwhile, Dr. Vahlen was still trying to figure out the theoretical and practical functionality of element zero (it turned out to be quite a lot of work to speed-read a thousand years' worth of physics texts, not made easier by the lack of theoreticians amongst the crew of the scout flotilla).

The shields held up against the plasma without much difficulty, as there was almost no mass to the shot, but the temperature sensor indicated that the single hit was enough to heat the chest plate enough that anyone inside the armor would have minor burns. Two or more hits would cook the soldier inside their armor and five or more and the armor would start to melt (or so said the math, they weren't willing to actually damage the armor in testing if it could be avoided).

That wasn't a great increase in survivability over the armor X-Com had already developed. But Semmi was examining the data, excitement flowing through old nerves as he realized a better way. All thoughts of which vanished from his mind as his omni-tool shook, indicating a message from Niva. The first signal appeared inside his helmet, commanding him to broadcast the rest to X-Com, once the download was finished.

It took mere moments for his omni-tool to finish receiving the streamed video. It took far longer to gather the people who would need to see what the Commodore had sent, but the video itself was less than a minute long. Everyone was gathered in the Situation Room, even the Spokesman was watching on a live link and behind him, sixteen figures sat, wreathed in shadows even deeper than those which concealed the Spokesman. The Commander took his seat, opposite the main screens, with Semmi and the X-Com senior officers arrayed between him and the screens. The man looked nothing like any of them had expected, a plump, middle-aged man, going prematurely grey, with a truly jolly smile and truly calculating eyes.

The sensor package they Quarians had dropped showed the X-Ray ships, flying in a rigid formation. Three more ships had appeared since the first image was taken, one replacing the ship lost in the most recent raid on Earth, two others taking up other positions, all three were the larger craft which launched abduction raids, snatching up entire towns. Staring at a might which would shatter every air force on the planet, the Commander suddenly looked much less like a jolly grandfather and much more like the man charged with defending the planet from unknowable evil.

Then eight of the smaller ships shattered as if hit by a nuclear bomb. Five seconds later another eight vanished. Five seconds after that, four of the larger ships broke apart, each displaying the signs of having been struck in two distinct locations, one in the prow and one in the stern, shattering armor and ripping them to shreds. The invaders finally began to move, scattering from the unknown threat that their sensors did not see. The smaller ships moved away swiftly enough, but two of the larger ships caught a single hit each, spinning away from the heavy strike, desperately trying to escape. Behind them, the Commander noted explosions on the surface of the moon as the shots which missed impacted the surface.

The remaining eleven ships were still scattering when nine other vessels appeared amongst them. Two of the large ships were in position to fire on them and did so instantly. Slow to flee, but fast to fire, that was the invaders in a nutshell. GARDIAN arrays sprang to life returning fire as the Quarian frigates split into two groups of four, attempting to bring their spinal mounted cannon on target. The heavier cruiser moved to place itself, its shielding and its heavier GARDIAN array between the packs of frigates and the other ships which were now attempting to reverse their direction and bring themselves back around, to cluster together and not be defeated in detail by forces they outnumbered (though perhaps did not outmass, it was hard to tell on the projection).

Plasma fire impacted the frigates, shields flaring and protecting the ships, dodging was impossible as the projectile moved at light speed, or near enough to make little difference at the range the Quarians had chosen to engage the invaders at. Though their mass was low, the energy transfer into the shields was doing significant damage. Fortunately, they quickly realized that the X-Ray ships' power peaked at detectible levels, immediately before firing, giving them a chance to try to move out of the line of fire, but the Quarians had to be lucky and good to evade even one shot.

The _Hatak's_ broadside smashed a pair of the smaller of the ships while each quartet of frigates destroyed its target. The remaining seven ships flared and vanished, reappearing in tight formation englobing the _Hatak_. To the Quarian observer, it was the suddenness of the jump, without any build-up of speed and the fact that they reversed direction which was impossible. To the Human observer, the mere fact of moving at least a thousand kilometers (it was hard to tell scale on the projection) in less than an instant was merely shocking (as Humanity had lacked an explanation for FTL travel, to them is was not impossible).

Fortunately, they were all small ships and it took a moment to transfer power from whatever FTL drive they had to the weapons, an instant the _Hatak_ took advantage of. Though the ships had carefully placed themselves outside the line of her cannon, they didn't yet have the range of her GARDIAN batteries and had appeared well within them. Three of the ships were sliced apart by the powerful lasers before they got off a shot and the _Hatak_ dove towards the hole she'd opened in the envelopment by their destruction.

The invader's ships raced after the fleeing _Hatak_ , the individual plasma shots didn't do much against the cruiser's heavier shields, but the firing rate on the plasma was absurd and the light-speed weapon didn't miss, unlike the much slower projectiles the _Hatak_ spat as it passed beyond GARDIAN range. The X-ray ships started to burn through the _Hatak's_ shields and ablate off portions of the hull.

Getting out of a trap was an instinctive reaction, which it took a moment to overcome, then the _Hatak_ flipped over and began to burn her engines back towards the enemy ships, trying to get back into GARDIAN range, which prompted the invaders to mimic the action trying to keep clear of the approaching lasers. Unfortunately, the frigates were out of position and it was going to take quite a while for them to get turned around. Even more unfortunately, one of the enemy ships chose to abort its reversal and attempt to ram the _Hatak_. The cruiser was not a nimble vessel, but it's hard to bring two objects together in space (as the _Hatak's_ gunnery crews were demonstrating) and the ships missed one another with the X-Ray ship came apart in a blaze of laser fire.

The others used their rear guns to pour plasma fire at the trailing _Hatak_ , whose bulk made dodging difficult. The frigates were even further back, too far back for any plasma to be directed at them, but the first quartet was finally properly angled with some momentum. It vanished. A few seconds later, they dropped out near the fleeing ships and GARDIAN lasers ripped the fleeing ships apart. The battle was over in moments, except for cleanup of the few damaged ships, which the other quartet of ships accomplished at the same time.

"How the _fuck_ did you do that?" Dr. Shen asked. It was the first time anyone could remember hearing the decorous engineer swear.

"Fortunately, they use short range weapons, so they didn't take precautions against long range fire, instead maintaining a regular path and constant positions. The fleet took up position behind this system's fourth planet and fired the projectiles at where the ships would be when the rounds finally reached them. As they travel slower than light speed, the projectiles passed through where Mars was, while the bulk of the planet blocked any sight of the fleet itself. Then it was just a matter of timing the arrival to coincide with the barrage. Simple math."

"Hardly simple," Central Officer Bradford muttered.

"It's not that bad for a computer with a complete model of the solar system," Dr. Vahlen put in.

"You also have to have an accurate model of local space, even minor disturbances in the local gravity can have major impacts at that sort of range," Semmi added.

"In any case, our ships are taking position around your moon, to ensure any further incursions are intercepted. Given that none of them escaped, we think we've got a good chance of defeating any more invaders as they arrive."

"Good."

"But we need to know more about their tech, especially their FTL drives. What they did in that engagement…shouldn't have been possible."

"Unlike your own jump to FTL speeds to catch up to those fleeing ship?" Dr. Shen asked, with a raised brow.

"Exactly, I'm so glad you understand."

"Well, based on what we've found in the recovered vessels, we think—" Dr. Shen began.

"Folks, you can talk science elsewhere, this room is needed to decide strategy to handle EXALT forces and the remaining infiltrators and scattered, escaped remnants of their forces. The balance has shifted and we need to take advantage of that, now," the Commander said, dismissing everyone except Bradford with whom he began reviewing the intelligence they'd gathered.

The scientists retreated to discuss their speculation and science elsewhere.

 ** _Codex: Faster Than Light Travel, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

Rish'Reegar's shot blew through the Thin Man's throat, nearly decapitating the X-Ray. Like most of the Marines the Commodore had dropped off, he'd adopted the slang of the X-Com soldiers and he sang out over the secured comm system they'd set-up "X-Ray down, east flank secure. No movement."

Ten seconds later, he regretted that statement as a Thin Man dropped out of the sky less than ten meters in front of him, firing as it landed, ignoring the twenty-story drop as easily as if it had been wearing an Eezo drop harness.

 ** _Codex: Drop Harness, Unlocked._**

The shots impacted his shields before he had time to bring his weapons to bear. The light plasma rifle's burst shot sent half a dozen bolts of plasma into his shields. Only the upgraded shielding kept him safe and even then, his external temperature sensors were screaming that his armor was close to melting. He could feel the heat transfer, even through the armor and inner suit.

 ** _Codex: Anti-Plasma Shielding, Unlocked._**

Rish spun away, diving for cover, "Under fire!" he shouted into the radio, then began to curse vilely. The broadened shielding continued to take hits despite the fact that he was in cover. The stone wall acted as a thermal buffer, but his shields were continuing to drain. A single shot from a laser sniper rifle cut the invader in half.

"X-Ray down," Major Alexia Shepard bragged from where she was crouching on the rooftop of a skyscraper six blocks away.

"Thanks," Rish muttered, a little embarrassed.

"Local forces are reporting an attempted breakout three streets north," the Commander's light voice cut in.

"Moving to support," Rish said, obediently.

A pair of X-Com troopers in Skeleton Armor, ideal for getting around the tight urban environs of downtown Mexico City, joined him as he headed towards the breakout area. He'd made it almost halfway there when he was almost swept from his feet as displaced air smashed windows and knocked down the unarmored. An invader battleship simply materialized two hundred feet up. Massive, anti-ship balls of plasma rained down on the city indiscriminately, killing civilian, soldier and invader alike.

"Re-route. Any X-Com personnel who can reach that ship, do so. Be aware, all available air-forces are en-route. Space forces are repositioning for an orbital strike. Take that ship down before I have to order kinetic strikes on a populated area," the Commander spoke before Rish had broken out of his horrified staring at the enemy ship.

The troopers looked at the grappling hooks built into their armor and then at the ship and silently wondered what two men with hand-weapons could do against that behemoth. Rish managed to speak, "What are our orders once we get on board?"

"Based on the last battleship we encountered, there's a central core, with four nodes powering the outer systems. We don't have time to play with the nodes and try to capture it, take out the main power core and the whole ship will go down."

"That'll kill—"

"Less people than are dying every second we discuss this trooper," the Commander's voice was as light and high as ever, but Rish shut up.

"Get me up there," he ordered the troopers. They were young, younger than him, if he read Human ages right and wearing the odd little patches that marked them as citizens of different countries on this absurdly divided little world, though he could not remember which ones the patches signified. For all that, they worked together, grabbing one arm each and making the three jumps which got them to the top of a nearby skyscraper. Only once was their jump further propelled by the rising air caused by the passage of superheated plasma.

Then they were on the roof and it was just a matter of lining up two shots from their grappling hooks. Rish's arms ached from being hauled around, but it was better than being dropped to splatter on the pavement. Their shots were good, the hooks hit firmly, magnetic and physical attachments locked in place, spools yanking three bodies up only slightly slower than they'd have lifted two, but it wasn't fast enough to outmaneuver the point-defense gun which slewed towards the incoming soldiers, believing them to be an extremely large, extremely slow, missile (which, in a sense, they were).

The anti-ship plasma bolt impact his shields, overloading them for a moment and superheated air surrounded the rising soldiers. The Humans, lacking the hardsuit Rish was wearing, cooked alive around him. Despite their horrible deaths, their hands never faltered in their grip on his forearms, nor did the cable hauling them upward melt, not until they reached their destination. Their screams were terrible to hear, and Rish could do nothing but watch them die and the temperature gauge on his armor rise and rise, until finally, after a subjective eternity, they escaped the superheated air and hit the strangely accommodating hull of the battleship.

A flash on his HUD and he had the plans for the battleship, its central power core lighting up, a gift from the Commander, watching all this on satellite alone as his video feeds from his soldiers ended when the cameras melted. A whispered command and his VI gave him the most direct route to the core. It was only three hundred meters away, but even before beginning the run he was gasping for air, the interior of his suit uncomfortably hot. He waited one moment for his shields to start recharging and the doors at the far end of the platform snapped open, revealing a quartet of Sectoids.

An **overload** sent the fragile invaders into convulsions and he sprinted forward. "I've got no eyes on you once you're inside," the Commander said. "I'll warn you when forces are in position, but I can't hold fire for you to escape."

A shouted command had his suit VI transmitting from his sensors to the Commander's frequency (the only reason that hadn't been done before was absurd turf battles between the marine commander and the Commander, which hadn't mattered when all they were doing was clean-up, but which Rish was unwilling to engage in at the moment). The marine didn't bother to respond, to the Commander's words, instead gasping commands to his suit's systems as he raced down hallways, sliding away from a pair of Mutons that reacted with the characteristic aggression of their kind.

He outraced them, with the help of a dropped grenade which took their legs out from under them. His omni-tool was building more grenades, draining the omni-gel reservoirs which acted as insulation throughout his suit. Three dozen anti-armor grenades were being generated and he attached each one to his armor as it completed, never breaking stride.

Three doors, and a dodged cluster of Floaters later, Rish literally ran into a Berserker, rebounding painfully and rolling back, dodging razor bladed fists. A scrambling dive sent him through the giant beast's widespread legs. Unfortunately, that exposed him to the quartet of Mutons following the Berserker and who promptly opened fire. Fortunately, they were far enough back that his shields were still between him and them.

A scrambling, crawling rush got him into cover, though his outer armor was smoking, the few cloth decorations had already burnt off, only metal still held. The vacuum of the empty omni-gel reservoirs acted as better heat protection than the omni-gel itself, so his inner suit wasn't warm yet. The grenade he'd dropped to protect his back did so, flattening the Berserker, but it was inside his expanded shields when it went off. The armor piercing grenade had a small damage radius, but it flung off shrapnel which punctured both layers of his armor and punched into his flesh easily.

He was only twenty meters from the power core, but the quartet of Mutons pounding on his shields and a door were in the way. Luckily, the aliens didn't appear to have any concept of locks, which was good as a single locked door would definitely screw him. A snapped command brought his shields back in to minimum distance as if the plasma hit his armor, than he was completely screwed. The heat transfer wouldn't be immediately lethal. Hopefully. Without the shielding stopping the shots, plasma began to eat away at the metal of the ship, melting cover and panels alike.

His training made him wish there was time to fabricate a flash-bang, but he lacked the omni-gel for that, as his armor was festooned with anti-armor grenades (which fortunately could not be set off by mere heat, but needed a triggering message from his omni-tool). Even if he'd had the materials, there was no time to wait, the Berserker was getting up behind him, the grenade having not, apparently, killed the beast, to Rish's disbelief and irritation.

He vaulted the bench he was hiding behind, stumbled and almost fell as his injured leg hit the ground, then sprinted down the hall. One of the Mutons rose and charged towards him. There was no room for more than one of the giant green invaders in that hall. Rish waited until the beast was almost atop him, then launched an **incinerate** into the creature's face. It screamed, clawing at its eyes as the fluid in them boiled. A quick step had him sliding under a flailing arm, then Rish was past and sprinting. Plasma rounds impacted his shields and the metal surrounding him. Twice he almost stepped in molten metal, barely managing to dodge. His armor was hot against his skin, cooking him from the outside in, but his muscles still worked as he hit the door.

He'd been moving too fast for the sensor to open it before he hit the slab of armor plate. It opened as he rebounded, staggering back. It was lucky he did so, as a Chryssalid's talons sliced through the air where he would have been, the moment the door opened. Six feet of chitinous death screamed its frustration at him, but the Quarian controlled his fear and rushed forward, knocking the off-balance insect backwards. He tried to scream defiance at the beast, but his armor was cooking its way through his throat, so it came out a pained croak. A step on chiten, then another on the hull and he was over the monster. The insect's talon slashed against the back of his leg as he entered the power core. He could see the Elerium generator ahead of him, just like the one that the scientists were working on back at X-Com headquarters. The blow cut through his armor like it wasn't even there, severing muscle and tendon alike, but it was also so powerful it knocked him forward. The other Chryssalids in the pack closed to dice him to pieces, but Rish'Reegar, nar'Quib-Quib, vas'Lorion was close enough to the generator and he detonated every grenade on his armor.

A quarter of them had melted too badly to be functional, but the remainder detonated, turning the power core into thirty meter in diameter hole in the ship. You could look up from beneath it and see the sky (not that that would be a good idea as the engines failed when the power did). The battleship plummeted to the ground. If it had been higher up, backup power systems could have saved it, but so close to the surface, nothing could. Its momentum plowed it through a few buildings, but its guns were silent as it impacted the ground with the force of a cruise missile.

X-Com and military forces raced to secure the downed ship, but the battle would not be over for another eight hours.

 ** _Codex: Defense of Mexico City, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

At precisely 1100 Eastern Standard Time, every television, radio, cell phone, wireless and cellular device displayed the same thing. The Commander did not hide his face, he did not need to, no one knew his plump features, not after the…alterations the Council and then Dr. Vahlen had made to them.

"Humanity is under attack," his voice was light, even and calm, as images began to play around him of the various attacks. "I am the Commander of the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, also known as X-Com. For the last four months, I have led the efforts to defend this planet. I have done so in secrecy, to attempt to preserve calm. The events in Mexico City," the sight of the battleship raining death and destruction down upon the helpless citizens, replaced his face "reveal the folly of that approach. All military forces willing to work against these invaders will be provided with the knowledge and resources we have gathered. I ask that we gather the full force of our world to hurl back those who would destroy us. I invite you to join us. For though Humanity is under attack by a mighty foe, we are not helpless," images of the battleship falling from the sky and a dozen other smaller victories filled the screen, "we are not doomed and we are not alone."

"Enemies have come from beyond our solar system, but so have allies," images of a pair of Quarians, one male, Rish'Reegar, and one female, Niva'Zorah, appeared on the screen. "These are members of the Quarian Migrant Fleet, who have fought alongside us to defeat the invaders. They have suffered alongside us," Rish's form faltered and burned in the camera, "died alongside us," images of Quarian Marines and X-Com Troopers fell, burned beyond recognition, blown up, or ripped apart by Berserkers or Chrysallids filled the screen, "and won alongside us."

"We have done the best we can, but this is total war. Our enemies have proven that. It is time we showed them what Humanity is truly capable of. Plans for new aircraft, new weapons and new technology have been provided to the United Nations and to all member states. When next they come to Earth, they will meet the full might of an entire world. X-Com will be in touch with all militaries to provide coordination, tactical advice and support."

"Vigilo Confido."

 ** _Codex: The Unveiling Unlocked_**

 **XXXXX**

"The Council is going to kill you, sir," Central Officer Bradford said.

"We'll see."

"They want to see us both in the Situation Room, sir. And they asked me to bring my gun. They are going to order me to kill you, I am absolutely certain of it."

"We'll see, Bradford, just relax and follow orders. I'll take care of it."

Semmi and one of the Quarian naval officers was waiting outside the Situation Room and followed the officers inside. The Commander was pretty good at telling Quarians apart, but the on-duty naval officers had a tendency to wear identical uniforms and rely on their electronic systems to tell who they were talking to.

The Commander was surprised to see them, as he hadn't invited them, but Semmi, for all that the old Quarian was a grumpy stick-in-the-mud, was a skilled politician. Though he lacked on-the-ground experience with Humanity, even after a month downside, he was aware enough to know that revealing this secret would have consequences.

Trying to keep him out would be hard and possibly futile, especially as the naval officer was carrying an assault rifle that could probably blow its way through the Situation Room's armored door. They shuffled inside as a group, the Commander's steps were light despite his bulk, but his were the only light steps there. Semmi had the steps of an old man, the naval officer the steps of a tired one and Central Officer Bradford had the steps of a man who might have to shoot his commanding officer in the head.

This time every screen lit up the moment they entered, except for the Council Spokesman's. The Council chose to speak to them directly, not through its Spokesman.

Germany spoke first, as they did retain sufficient self-control not to interrupt one another. Barely. "You had no authority to reveal the X-Com project to the world at large."

"After Mexico City—" the Commander began.

"We could have covered up Mexico City. We've done it before," Mexico interjected, voice scrambler making tone hard to decipher, but the Commander thought he heard despair hiding behind fury.

"Nonsense. This isn't the 19th century, you don't just have to lie to a few reporters and knock off a few witnesses. Even with the usual X-Com blackout, there was video of that ship on the net thirty seconds after it appeared," the Commander countered.

"This is irrelevant," Japan put in sharply, before the debate could get off track. "The issue is the Commander's unauthorized actions, nothing else."

"I am authorized to take any and all actions necessary to protect this planet from the invaders. When it appeared this was some sort of scouting or raiding operation, I could do that with the resources of this project. Mexico City made it clear that we are at war and for that, I need the resources of the world, not what scraps you can funnel me through black programs."

"Oh, please. We destroyed their fleet. This is a last futile attempt at revenge," United States interjected.

"We do not believe that is correct," Semmi said, before anyone else could respond to that. The engineer waved to the officer beside him.

"Lieutenant Kal'Tova, liaison officer. The Commodore is extremely concerned that this ship broke protocol and appeared in atmosphere and launched its assault, rather than appearing on the far side of the moon, observing, then attacking. That indicates to us that it was somehow warned of the attack. We don't know how that's possible as we didn't detect any transmissions and none of the ships escaped. She's ordered all our ships into low orbit, flying pseudo-random patterns to attempt to intercept any further assaults. But even split into three flotillas, there will be large areas that are unprotected and eventually we will run out of fuel, unless someone's got a supply of Helium-3 we can use?"

Japan nodded. "I've been looking into that, our reactors can produce small amounts, but not the amounts requested."

"Well, if we stick close, and only use the thrusters for course corrections, let the planetary gravity do more of the work, we can stay mobile for a couple of months, but the more we have to divert and the more we have to drop into and out of atmo, the less time we'll have," Kal said.

"Any update on when the rest of your Fleet will arrive?" France asked.

Kal shook his head, "No news."

"We're drifting from the point. Is your alliance with us contingent upon how we handle this internal matter?" Germany asked.

"No," Semmi said, stepping in for the, more junior, liaison officer. "However, we have been impressed with the Commander's abilities. And though this is an internal matter, we agree that more resources are needed. That's why we hope the Fleet will agree to come here. If we can gain additional resources here, we are all in favor of that. However, we recognize this is an internal matter and simply wished to register our concern regarding the future actions of the invaders. As a cultural note, I will say that the Migrant Fleet has little respect for those who criticize without offering a superior solution. Practicality is a necessity forced upon us by the difficulties of living in space. On that note, I leave this matter in your capable, and _practical_ , hands," Semmi saluted the screens sharply, saluted the Commander equally sharply and took his leave, with Kal dogging his heels.

"Do you have anything to say in your defense?" Germany asked.

"I did not mention the Council, or EXALT, merely that which was already going to leak out. If you wish to dissociate yourselves, you can. I know none of your identities. Indeed," the Commander shot a bitter glare at Australia, who had left the Council, only to rejoin when the Quarians arrived and turned the tide of the war. "You all _know_ I neither could, nor would take any action against you for such a choice."

 ** _Codex: The Council Unlocked_**

"Giving us a way out of our own organization is hardly a defense!" France put in sharply.

"Enough, of this nonsense," Nigeria said. "We were already discussing how to reveal this matter to the public. We're all pissed that our media consultants didn't get to earn their money and we didn't get to control the narrative, but the results are good enough. I move we give the Commander a commendation for the defense of Mexico City and a reprimand for overstepping his authority and be done with it. Can I get a second?"

"Second," Argentina agreed.

There was a quick vote, which came out with five abstentions, nine ayes and two nays and the meeting was handed back over to the Council Spokesman. It returned to the usual administrative business of running a growing organization and Bradford drifted out to get back to his own work.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Migrant Scout Flotilla Activities:_**

 _Scout Flotillas serve a number of purposes. Most obviously, they scout paths for the Fleet to travel, ensuring that they are safe, or at least, providing information by which the Conclave can pick the least dangerous route (or the one which provides the greatest risk-reward ratio). Somewhat less obviously, they also do basic surveys, searching for materials the fleet can mine, even conducting basic salvage and simple mining operations if feasible. Less obvious still, they act as distribution points and support for those Quarians on pilgrimage and keep a careful eye out for Geth. About as obvious, but far less openly discussed, is their usage as tools of blackmail, as, if provided with sufficient "donations" of materials, the flotillas may also accept "donations" of information regarding the suitability of the system._

 _The vast majority of the time, those bribes, along with the actual information are passed along to the Migrant Fleet, which abides by the terms negotiated by the flotilla's commodore. The other instances end either with the sudden and meteoric collapse of the commodore's career, or the flight of the commodore from the Fleet in a stolen shuttle, or ship._

 ** _Codex: Faster Than Light Travel:_**

 _There are three known forms of FTL travel. The first depends upon the use of Mass Relays, either the unidirectional ones which connect to specific other relays (with an unlimited range), or the omni-directional secondary relays with a range of a few hundred light years. This is limited by the nature of the relays._

 _The second is the standard Mass Effect Drive, lowering the mass and using standard engines to accelerate the ship to FTL speeds. This is limited by fuel, power, and the need to discharge the drive core into a planetary body periodically._

 _The final and most recently discovered means of FTL travel is that used by the Ethereals and their slaves. Known as the Jump Drive, it uses an entirely different means of travel, folding space to permit the ship to travel almost instantly over large distances._

 _However, though the distances are large on any terrestrial, or stellar scale, they aren't large on the interstellar scale. The exact distance varies by the size of the ship, the size of the drive and the amount of power available. However, such drives need to cooldown after each jump. The cooldown period is at least an hour for the smallest drives (usually capable of a jump of about a light-hour) and the cooldown period scales with the size of jump (or, more accurately, the size of the jump the drive is capable of). For this reason, there is occasional debate over whether it truly counts as an FTL drive, as the jump plus cooldown usually approximately equals travel at the speed of light. Given that the travel is instantaneous, those arguments are usually treated as an attempt to undermine the importance of the Jump Drive. Especially given the capabilities of extremely large Jump Drives._

 _Folding space does nothing to change momentum, so the ship will come out of the portal moving at the same speed and in the same direction as it went in._

 ** _Codex: Drop Harness:_**

 _A Drop Harness is an attachment for most forms of body armor consisting of an Eezo core, sufficient straps and connections to spread the field over the entire body and a self-regulating power supply to change the mass of the soldier wearing the armor. Typically used for rapid deployment planetary assaults on areas where shuttles would be shot down, but an orbital strike would do too much damage, they are relatively inexpensive (compared to a shuttle) and reliable pieces of technology. Originally used solely by Krogan launching assaults on Rachni (and later, Citadel) worlds, they've become much more common over the intervening centuries._

 _General tactics include deployment of a swarm of soldiers using the harnesses. Gravity is altered to accelerate their descent, until the pre-arranged height when their mass is reduced until they can land safety. Generally, anti-air defenses can pick off only a handful of the plummeting soldiers, enabling the attacker to land a significant force._

 _However, the very speed which makes the assault possible, also makes it extremely risky. If the harness malfunctions, or any of the information is wrong, or, the height of a location changes since programming, or, most commonly, electronic warfare confuses the harness's small onboard computer, then the attackers will almost certainly die to the last._

 ** _Codex: Anti-Plasma Shielding:_**

 _A creation of the combined engineering talent of the Migrant Fleet and X-Com, anti-plasma shielding was a result of the simple realization that the risk of plasma weaponry was the heat transfer. It depended upon the fact that shields were as close to the armor as possible (usually a good idea to avoid wasting defensive power on shots which would not have hit the soldier wearing the armor)._

 _They realized that due to the lesser mass of plasma shots, it was possible to expand the field radically without risking an easy breach. It did mean that the soldiers needed to be more spread out, but given the effect of one of the alien grenades had on shielding and Quarian or Human armor alike, not clustering was a good idea. The Elerium-cored explosives were an order of magnitude more powerful than either Human or Quarian grenades._

 _The end result of this experimentation was to render the Quarian marines essentially immune to plasma fire. This did not extend to a Beserker or Chryssalid's claws, a Drone's laser burst, or the cannon mounted on Cyberdiscs, let alone the grenades they could hurl half a dozen city blocks. Still, the Quarian marines had far greater survivability than X-Com's forces, at least until additional shield generators could be manufactured and deployed._

 ** _Codex: Defense of Mexico City:_**

 _The Ethereal Assault on Mexico City was launched without warning, or provocation. Before the X-Com fire-team's sacrifice brought the ship down, it levelled a large part of downtown Mexico City. More than a half a million people were killed or injured. None of the X-Com team which had been purging the city of X-Ray troops survived, as they were either killed by the bombardment, killed onboard the ship, or killed when the ship crashed._

 _A surprising number of the battleship's crew survived the crash, especially amongst the Muton shock troops. Fortunately, they did not scatter into the city, or go hunting for civilians, but rather followed the last order their Ethereal master had given them before being killed in the crash, doing their level best to defend the ship, especially the, now destroyed, power core. This meant that the attempt by the first responders to the scene, members of the Zeta Cartel, to loot the ship ended in complete disaster. So did the boarding attempt by the Special Unit of the Mexico City Preventative Police Department. Finally the police decided to simply hold a perimeter and called for military support._

 _Fortunately, Mexico was part of the X-Com council and they managed to put that response on hold until another X-Com team could be brought in to spearhead the assault. That assault was long and bloody, but, spearheaded by a platoon of Quarian marines, seeking vengeance for the losses they suffered in the initial attack, the blood was mostly shed by the Ethereal invaders._

 ** _Codex: The Unveiling:_**

 _The Council had gone to a great deal of effort to attempt to keep the Ethereal Invasion secret. In this they were aided by the natural incredulity of people when informed of an alleged alien invasion. It was also aided by the fact that the aliens had mostly targeted outlying areas for their abductions and raids._

 _Still, for the most part the Council's actions merely managed to create a tissue-thin plausible deniability for those in power and for those people who were too busy with their lives to try to deal with an alien invasion. It was that comforting blanket of lies and misdirection which the Commander ripped away with his announcement._

 _The reaction of the public was immediate, but hardly coherent, with a singular exception. Everyone demanded more information. They wanted to know everything. As the Commander had not mentioned EXALT for fear of inducing suspicion and distrust amongst the very forces he was looking to unite, the populace did not understand why so many secrets were being kept. However, the story that the aliens were monitoring communications covered a multitude of secrets._

 _For the most part, the nations of the world did pull together, under the banner of X-COM. Though the debates over the expansion of the Council to other nations and the appropriate means of controlling and funding the project would continue throughout the war (and beyond), X-COM's visible successes and alliance with the Quarians, made the project responsible for Earth's defense._

 ** _Codex: The Council—Pre-Contact:_**

 _The Council originated in a fraternity/secret-society of bureaucrats. Representatives from the great powers of the world felt the need to interact, regardless of the desires and goals of their nations and political masters._

 _In order to avoid a single discovered person from destroying the whole group, they adopted the practice of going only by the name of the country they were from/were representing. This practice persisted long after the group was discovered and reported by various intelligence agencies. As they were not, in fact, an espionage group, they were simply coopted as a back-channel, deniable means of conducting diplomacy. A larger, less accountable, less visible, but surprisingly useful version of the UN Security Council._

 _They attempted with varying degrees of success to address any number of global issues. The X-COM project was by far their largest and most successful endeavor and it led the Council out of the shadows and into the light. The effects this would have on the group are substantial, and addressed in other histories of the Council._

 **Author's Note: You may say that they came to an agreement awfully fast. Given that they didn't have any options, X-Com didn't bother with a lot of talk about it.**

 **We're moving fairly fast, as the meat of this story is during the time period of the main Mass Effect series. If there's any interest, I may write a few shorts about the Ethereal War.**

 **As you can see, I went with a not particularly believable cover-up/denial of the invasion. Mostly because if it was widely acknowledged then I'd have expected total war, not squad based actions. A lot of that is the result of the engine and the structure of X-Com, but I'm running with it a bit.**

 **Comments/reviews/critiques are always welcome. Death to all typos!**


	3. Chapter 3: Unknown Knowledge

**Chapter 3: Unknown Knowledge**

 **Author's Note: The reviews raised some good questions:**

 **X-Com Ships Shielding: I certainly don't recall any X-Com ships (in Enemy Unknown) having external shielding from the game, and if they do, I fail to see how the interceptors we start out with could possibly shoot down any such craft. We don't really get to see much of the air combat and a quick look on the wiki doesn't turn up any evidence of shields beyond heavy armor. If I'm wrong, feel free to point me to a source and I'll correct.**

 **On the topic of the power of GARDIAN lasers, we see them used downside on Horizon to drive off and damage the Collector ship, even through the atmosphere, so they clearly can harm larger vessels. Also, as previously mentioned, the Hatak has sacrificed spinal mount weaponry for an expanded GARDIAN array. I believe that all the ships destroyed by laser fire have it coming from the Hatak, not the lighter frigates. There's a reference in the Codex to how at knife fight range GARDIAN lasers become viable weapons, though that's against frigates and fighters. Still, given the relative size of the Normandy and the smaller Ethereal ships, (shown when they land and in crew complement) I believe it's not unreasonable for a weapon that would be a threat to the Normandy to be a threat to those craft. Finally, I just checked and even the man-portable explosives (though the save I had on hand was late game) can punch through the armor of landed craft, so I think I'm on fairly solid ground to say that the GARDIAN lasers can do so.**

 **I don't think there is a great answer on the question of X-Com plasma weapons vs. Mass Effect shields (the three plasma labelled weapons we see have very different effects and they rely on element zero to up their mass) I've seen both sides argued with far greater scientific knowledge than I possess, so I'm handwaving this and saying in this universe, this is the effect they have. Laser weapons still punch right through Mass Effect shields, fortunately the aliens don't use them much.**

 **More generally there were concerns about the relative power of the Ethereal tech vs. Mass Effect tech. A large number of Mass Effect-XCOM crossovers have Ethereal tech be universally better than Mass Effect tech. Obviously this is a question there's not a good answer to, as there is no canon crossover. I've addressed most of the points above, but there's three additional ones I want to make.**

 **First, all the Ethereal ships use plasma based weaponry, except the battleship (and the Temple ship), which used fusion weaponry (I reference plasma weaponry in the last chapter because I assume a battleship has both and would use plasma, rather than waste the power for fusion weapon use on a civilian population center where there's nothing that can possibly stand up to a single blast). Fusion weaponry will not have the weaknesses plasma weaponry does against mass effect shielding.**

 **Second, the only ship-to-ship engagement we've seen (so far) involves an ambush, where one party doesn't even know of the existence of the other. If the Ethereals had known of the existence of the Quarians and even the basics of their capabilities, they wouldn't have remained in a static formation. More generally, the Ethereals here are off balance and don't know the capabilities of their enemy. They're in the same position X-Com was at the very beginning, but the Quarians aren't trying to advance Ethereal understanding/evolution and so they aren't starting with scouts and a few abductions, it's more like if your first mission involved facing down Ethereals and Muton Elites.**

 **Third, more generally, I should warn you up front, this will not be a story where Humanity (and Quarianity) claim the Ethereal's technology, go forth into the galaxy and slap around the rest of the galaxy with their superior technology. There's a lot of stories like that and I enjoy most of them (especially those dealing with the Batarians), but it's not this story. I'm happy to defend my reasoning at greater length (though this has already been pretty long) if folks wish, but any more here is likely to look like an attack on those stories, which I don't want, as I quite enjoy them. Feel free to PM me if you wish to continue the discussion.**

 **Finally, there was a comment suggesting there were too many Codex entries. I understand that and I believe I've written them all so they aren't necessary to understand what's going on, but are there if you want a bit of backstory.**

 **Thanks for the reviews and comments.**

"How many?" Niva asked, staring out over the vast city of Dhaka.

Twenty-six of the smaller ships, five larger transports," one of her officers reported, hands steady, though his voice shook. She knew his name, knew all their names, knew all their families, but in this moment, it was easier to think of them as merely her officers.

"Both wolf-packs are fully engaged, one over Lagos and one over New York. They're holding their own. This is clearly the main thrust," Officer Bradford said over the comm.

"Fall back and regroup with Flotilla One," the Commander's light voice said.

"And abandon the city? The Chryssalids on those ships will turn the populace and rampage across the continent like Krogan!" another of her officers put in, voice sharp.

"No they won't. I'm in communications with the _HMS_ _Vigilant."_

"What is one Human ship going to do?"

"It will launch its payload of nuclear missiles at the city, at my command."

"There are as many people in this city as in the entire Migrant Fleet!" the officer shouted.

"Enough," Niva cut in.

"Commodore?" the Commander had caught something in her voice.

"I do not work for you Commander. All marines to drop positions, all nonessential hands to life boats. Weapons free. Evacuate the area beneath the battle. Let us show these vermin how true spacers fight."

Quarians rained from the sky, brief discharges of the Eezo that powered the marines' shields slowing their fall, but burning out the suits' cores. Lifeboats scattered, mostly evading fire from the surrounding ships, though they were undoubtedly tagged for attack and capture when they were on the ground. The cruiser's enhanced GARDIAN systems burnt scout-ships from the sky, firing so quickly that the weapons began to melt. They'd never been meant to fire continuously, especially not in atmosphere.

"Focus fire on the transports," Niva snapped as she saw the larger ships were still racing for the mostly undefended city below.

"Air support doesn't have a chance against that many X-Ray ships and I can't move any troops to you with those ships in the sky," the Commander put in. "You must withdraw. You will die to no effect."

Niva just laughed as she watched the crew she'd chosen and trained chase civilians away and flee from beneath the shadows of battle. Her ship shook beneath her as it spun, its broadside cannon shattered one transport with half a dozen sequential shots.

The others closed, dropping so they could come up from beneath the cruiser. Niva didn't dare fire the mass effect cannon down. If fired level, or up, the shot had enough momentum to escape the atmosphere rather than impact the surface and vaporize a half-mile diameter sphere of the planet. If fired down, she would destroy everything she sought to protect.

The _Hatak_ dropped, catching itself with its Eezo core and thrusters, spinning to bring its guns to bear, downing a second transport. Plasma fire sparkled off the _Hatak's_ expanded shields, temperature of the hull rising slowly, as the plasma fire had to superheat the air between expanded shield and hull.

Scout ships raced forward, as the _Hatak_ tried to retreat, but they were far faster in atmosphere than the cruiser. They slid through the expanded shielding at a speed which would not trigger it and fired only on the weapon mounts, not the engines, or the main body of the cruiser. Still-functional GARDIAN turrets melted or collapsed, mass effect cannon were fused shut, or melted under the fire as the enemy ships raced closer.

"They're trying to capture your ship. We can't let them take it!" the Commander snapped, a little emotion in his voice for the first time in Niva's experience. She ignored him, issuing brief commands, to her console and remaining officers, making the ship dance to try to avoid fire and bring functional weapon systems to bear on the enemy (and lead them back to the spot that was the center of the evacuation zone she'd declared). Those weapons were destroyed in turn, though more slowly as she collapsed the shields inwards to catch the next barrage of plasma fire, forcing the invaders to approach ever more closely.

The air inside the shields was so hot it was beginning to melt through the cruiser's armor. Niva didn't look at the locators for her crew. Not yet. She couldn't affect their evacuation and it would not, alas, affect her actions. She wished she could have pulled the enemy from the city, but two of those transports had already vacillated from pursuing her to seeking to land when she'd pulled back once. Even a single transport full of Chryssalids would do unimaginable damage in a city of millions.

"Seventy percent of weapons are disabled," an officer reported levelly.

"Roll us and bring us about, let the lower aft weapons get some use," Niva ordered casually.

"Aye, aye-transports are closing on us."

"Semmi! Thank god, talk some sense into her!" the Commander ordered.

Semmi, ten thousand miles away stared at the screen displaying the battle. The _Hatak_ listed slightly, and was taking on the appearance of a half-melted meteorite, not the pride of the Migrant Fleet. She was surrounded by the swarm of tiny craft, with the behemoths of the transports looming amongst them like whales surrounded by fish. The enemy craft were close, so close they were clearly going to try to board.

Niva'Zorah was too canny a tactician to let that happen, unless…"Cousin, if you scuttle the _Hatak_ you'll do as much damage to the city as the H—Commander's bombs. There's still time to withdraw. Save your ship, Captain," he said, voice low and urgent, deliberately choosing the lesser rank to try to remind her of her duty to the ship.

Her laughing response was equally low, but a harsh thing. "Silly cousin, too much the politician and the engineer, not enough the tactician."

Semmi didn't see what she saw, he never had, but he knew her. "Keelah Se'lai, Niva'Zorah," he said.

"No, cousin," Niva felt the ship stop shuddering as the last of her guns fell silent and looked for the locators. Most of them were clear and the last of the three remaining transports were close and closing. "By the homeworld you build tomorrow." She did not say she wished she could have undergone the Meld treatment which let Semmi walk the X-Com base without his suit. It was true, but it wasn't what her last words needed to be.

 ** _Codex: Quarian Meld Treatment, Unlocked._**

It mattered that the Humans knew why she did this as much as they saw it done. Her finger moved and power flared, all the power that would have fed the, now silent, weapons of the cruiser, that powered it amongst the stars, that kept crew and passengers safe and whole in the vast emptiness of space, all was channeled, but not explosively outward into flames which would scorch a city to ash, but instead inward, deep into the element zero core of the ship, but instead of lightening the floating vessel still further, it took it to the other extreme and broadcast it outward. For almost a half mile around the ship, everything suddenly increased in mass.

Scout ship and transport alike attempted to remain aloft, but their engines were designed for their mass fully loaded, not their mass fully loaded and increased by a factor of ten. It didn't last long, couldn't last long, as the _Hatak_ plummeted as fast as the other ships, but it lasted long enough. Of the thirty-one ships which had attacked Dhaka, four survived the demise of the _Hatak_ , by the simply expedient of being too far away.

Those four fell to a combined air assault from the surrounding states, China and India especially simply swamped the few, damaged scout ships with fighter craft and missiles, until superior technology collapsed under sheer weight of explosives.

 ** _Codex: Defense of Dhaka, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

"Semmi is here, Commander."

The Commander nodded at the base staffer and waved her away. "How was the plant?" he asked.

"Good. They're producing plenty of Skyrangers to move troops. They're capable of producing a dozen Firestorms a week, the limitation is available materials. The materials salvaged from Dhaka would keep us going for a while, even with the new armor and weapon factories. However, getting to them isn't easy at the moment. How's the cleanup going there?"

"The last of the Sectoid commanders have been eliminated and the Chryssalids under its control have ceased their hit-and-run raids. They were surrounded and crushed by an armored division after infecting no more than a few hundred additional people."

Semmi winced. "No luck on a treatment for their venom?"

"No."

"Not even with Meld?"

"Maybe, if anyone survived long enough to get to treatment. The Council's pushing the idea of intentional infection to figure it out, but it's so damn fast, no treatment will matter."

Semmi nodded, choosing to overlook the Council's suggestion that people be intentionally infected with that venom. "Then I'll get my people moving on salvage. We still don't have good suits to protect your people against Element Zero contamination from the destruction of the _Hatak_. We're working on it, but collecting the material is going to be slow."

The Commander pressed a button and the room was sealed against any form of observation, at least, any form they were aware of. Their psionic research was still in its early stages, but holding a captured Sectoid Commander and Ethereal had taught them how to jam psionic abilities, they hoped. "Unfortunately, no matter how many we build, they can't stop the bastards from de-orbiting the moon, or dropping asteroids on our oceans, or crashing their ships into our cities. The best we can do is keep them from conquering us, but not destroying us. Having seen what they have done to their slaves, I do not deny this is the correct choice, but we need a third option. It's been months. Where the fuck is the Migrant Fleet?"

"We haven't received word yet. How goes the fight with EXALT?" Semmi countered.

 ** _Codex: EXALT, Unlocked._**

"Better now that we're able to deploy more forces to search for them, in fact we think we've identified—" the Commander's voice was interrupted by the sounding of a siren.

"Incoming missiles. All soldiers gear up, pilots to the Firestorms, everyone else head to shelters," Bradford's voice commanded over the intercom prompting the commander to disable the communication jammers.

Bradford's voice came from the Commander's desk next. "Commander, the missiles are relatively short range. There's at least three batteries firing from within four hundred miles. We're calculating the source of the missiles for a counter-strike, but unless those are nuclear strikes, they can't hope to destroy the base."

"Understood," the Commander said as Semmi huddled over his communicator, speaking to his ships.

"Aircraft are inbound to the launch sites. Ten seconds to impact. Outer doors are closing, outer doors are closed. Base secure. Three, two, one," the Commander's office was so deep inside the base that they didn't feel any impact, or hear any noise.

"Outer cameras destroyed. Outer turrets destroyed. Radar dish destroyed. Feed from military radar streaming in. Deploying replacement cameras. Confirmed second wave of missiles inbound. Anti-mine rockets inbound, targeting mine-fields. Additional impacts in fifteen seconds."

That impact they felt, though it was just a slight shake on the ground.

"Doors broken. Third salvo is airborne. Airstrike is being launched at the missile sites."

"Abort!" Semmi snapped, "Send the highview to Bradford, blow those missiles away!"

"Semmi?"

"My ships are in position, got a view and a line, there's anti-air batteries in place around the missiles launchers!"

"They'll be firing from over the horizon, it should be fine," the Commander said.

"Are you sure? I can blow them away from orb—"

"This needs to be done by our forces. It needs to be seen to be done by us," the Commander said.

"If you say so. My ships aren't coming into atmosphere until this is dealt with."

"It will be soon. As I was saying, we've identified the last of EXALT's operations. Simultaneous raids will be launched in thirty minutes. I suppose they thought they were being launched from here. Some were, but I have backups, of course. As if I wouldn't, given the array of other forces available to me? They don't even know they're going against EXALT, yet. This is going to be ugly, but EXALT is already dead, even if they don't know it yet."

 **XXXXX**

"Three minutes to target, over," the pilot's voice was precise and professional, cutting through the chatter of the special forces soldiers.

"Anyone, anyone at all want to tell me why the fuck we got sent to hit these fuckers in Boston?" one of the Joint Task Force 2 operators asked from his seat in the transport chopper.

"Apparently the Americans can't deploy their own military on law enforcement inside their own country—"

"Posse Comitatus," another operator interrupted the lieutenant.

"So they asked for help and our beloved government loaned us out to them."

"For what, a packet of smokes and a reach-around?"

"Think you're worth more, Jonesy?"

"Does this really count as law enforcement? I thought our orders were to just kill all these alien-loving pricks," another operator talked over Jones's attempt to respond.

"Like you're one to talk Mark, I saw your little collage of Quarian girls. Can't even see any skin, perv—"

"What can I say? I'm an ass ma—"

"Last mark, radio silence, over," the pilot put in, shutting up the banter.

The Canadians shut up, though Jones finally managed to convey his response eloquently and vulgarly with hand gestures.

A minute later the first helicopter in the task force approached the drop zone and simultaneously the sniper teams pre-positioned on the nearby buildings opened fire, taking out the perimeter guards. An instant later, missiles flew from launchers wielded by the sniper's spotters, taking out the pair of anti-air batteries which were sitting atop the building, sending flaming shrapnel down towards the, mostly, emptied (as they'd been ordered to strike when there were the fewest possible people around) streets.

Both choppers took up position and the four man lead team rappelled down lines, spreading out and covering the other sixteen as they slid down. Two of the first team went down under heavy fire from the rapidly responding EXALT forces' laser weapons, but the survivors managed to keep EXALT back, despite having turned down the more advanced weaponry which X-Com had offered.

Automatic weapons fire and two lives bought time for the rest of the task force to drop down and take up positions. They covered the two surviving operators as they retreated, tossing grenades. EXALT's forces attempted to pursue them out onto the open roof, under cover of a heavy barrage of suppressing fire, only to be cut down by the snipers still in position on the adjacent buildings.

The team advanced quickly, while EXALT was still disorganized from the failed assault. Flashbangs were far less effective than usual as EXALT's captured Meld had gone into genetic modification to its personnel, not permitting Quarians to function outside their suits. Still the rush of soldiers pushed into the luxurious command center. They suffered almost thirty percent casualties even before bursting into the main command center.

While they were distracted staring at the giant floating holographic globe, an Ethereal rose from a chair in a cell much like that X-Com had used to imprison the one they'd captured. They quickly realized that unlike the X-Com cell, this one lacked the psionic dampeners which let X-Com safely hold Ethereals and Sectoids. Unfortunately, they didn't realize this until one of their number had gunned down two others and been beaten to the ground by his fellows.

The cell walls were so thick that they easily shed the weapons fire which the team directed towards it. A grenade merely left some interesting stains against the thick transparent walls of the cell. The Ethereal raised a hand and seized control of a second soldier, forcing the rest of his team to bail out of the cover, as they were flanked, which unfortunately exposed them to fire from the few remaining EXALT members.

Lieutenant Smith pulled out his targeting laser and aimed it at the cell, then picked up the radio, "Silver One, this is Cable Actual, target painted, airstrike required. Over."

"Cable Actual, confirmed, moving into position. Out."

A shouted command sent the survivors of the assault team scampering into cover except for Smith's senior surviving sergeant, who charged forward, accepting three hits to his body armor in exchange for tackling his mind controlled soldier to the ground and covering the writhing, convulsing figure with his body. The attack helicopter opened up on the target with its 30 mm chaingun, which ripped through the command center, cell walls, the pair of EXALT troopers too stupid to hit the floor when everyone else did and then the walls on the other side.

The psychic backlash from the death of the Ethereal left the EXALT troopers stunned and helpless. The Canadian special forces did not bother attempting to take prisoners, instead eliminating the survivors quickly. A handful of the surviving, uninjured troops were detailed to secure the perimeter and search out any remaining EXALT forces, while everyone else did their best to patch up the wounded. Local police, fire and EMTs were flowing back into the area, as Lieutenant Smith had called in the all clear.

Fortunately, most of the actual EXALT computers were placed on the ground, with only the monitors on the desks, leaving them intact and ripe for the decrypting by X-Com's techs. Securing those remained the job of the remnants of his team, and after paying such a price for that victory, he did not propose to leave those computers for someone else to handle, even if the Boston PD didn't want to defer to a bunch of Canadians, even a bunch of Canadians with automatic weapons.

He won the argument by the simple expedient of not actually caring what they thought. And having an attack helicopter.

 **XXXXX**

The Commander stood in the Situation Room. "Councilors, I am pleased to report EXALT's headquarters has been captured and all operations we were aware of have been eliminated. Most of the files from their headquarters survived and simultaneous raids are being launched on the remaining cells by local forces. EXALT will not be a threat by the end of the day."

"Is the base secure? What's your status?" France asked.

"The main entrance was heavily damaged and so is the elevator. The ground assault which was intended to follow up the missile strike failed completely, as, though they'd compromised our satellite surveillance system, they didn't have any link to the Quarian ships in orbit. We saw them coming and ambushed them on approach. However, our defense against ground based assault will be limited until repairs are completed next month. However, the hanger is still functional, so we can continue to operate and bring in supplies. I've got combat air patrols from the local government flying over the area to ensure no airstrikes take out the hanger. I've also had an anti-missile system deploy—"

"Yes, yes, but let's get to the point. Did EXALT have an Ethereal prisoner, or were they slaves to the Ethereal?" United States interrupted.

"Given that the X-Ray was able to control the Task Force soldiers, it appears likely that EXALT was in service of the enemy. It is, however, possible that the containment system was damaged in the fire-fight and the X-Ray took advantage of that to attack. The files we've recovered aren't clear, yet. However there's terabytes of data still to be reviewed."

"We have copies of the files, other personnel will review them," Japan said.

"Understood. Please convey my condolences to the families of the fallen," the Commander said to Canada.

"It will be handled, though my government will be less than willing to give you further troops, given how few of our elite returned," Canada replied.

"Understood."

"Carry on, Commander. Remember, we will be watching," the Spokesman said.

 **XXXXX**

"Well?" Dr. Vahlen asked.

"It's too soon to know," one of the dozens of scientists who filled her labs, but whose names she didn't bother to learn told her with a patience that she didn't feel. The testing for psionic capability took days and there were no preliminary results. Or so they hoped, given that this was the first round of testing. It would be a shame if it turned out either that their methodology was flawed, or none of their subjects had any psionic capabilities.

The system was based off some video records of testing of Sectoids to identify Sectoid Commanders recovered from Dhaka and decoded by Quarian computers and Human codebreakers, but if there were any other records, they were beyond X-Com's ability to locate or decode.

"I know that!" Vahlen's accent thickened with stress as she watched the isolation pods tilt forward slowly. She did not jump up and down in excitement. She was a serious scientist. She was in charge of a serious project. She was a grown-up and she _did not jump_.

There may have been some, minor, bouncing, however.

That was insufficient to distract the scientists around her from their (figurative) laser focus on the isolation pods slowly sliding back to vertical and opening simultaneously, releasing two dozen volunteers. Muscles which hadn't moved in three days tried to flex to hold them up as the tubes which made the long-term isolation possible withdrew discretely (some facilitated by the medical personnel who filled her lab, exiling her to the observation level above, much to Dr. Vahlen's irritation).

The other senior personnel were watching on the big monitors in Mission Control, with, unbeknownst to Dr. Vahlen, Bradford's finger hovering over the button which activate the Psionic Lab's self-destruct, just as he did with the Alien Containment Chamber whenever they captured an X-Ray.

Semmi was back in his suit, except the helmet. The Quarian was the most relaxed of the lot of them, at least as far as the American Central Officer could tell. It was much easier to read his expression now that his helmet was off, though the slightly inhuman (and grey) nature of that face made it hard to read. It wasn't that he concealed anything. Indeed, his face seemed incapable of that, but the reactions weren't entirely the same as a Human's. His calm was all the more disturbing for being real, given that half of the test candidates were Quarians, mostly volunteers from amongst the least combat capable of the survivors of the _Hatak's_ crew, those few who had not become, what was now known as, Hatak Soldiers.

 ** _Codex: Hatak Soldier, Unlocked._**

The tests for psionic capability were, at best, guesswork, but none of the Quarians had shown any of the indicators which separated Sectoids from Sectoid Commanders. Still, Quarians had to be tested, that was part of the deal, equal sharing of all technology and advancements. It also meant that there had to be Quarian medics down there, as none of the Humans yet had any real understanding of Quarian physiology, despite the apparent external similarities (indeed, there were already jokes and conspiracy theories about the Quarians and the 'Greys' caused by nothing more than their skin color).

The medics, Human and Quarian alike, were wearing the prototype Mind Shields, providing as much protection as they could without putting in full-spectrum jammers in the Psionics Lab, which would be rather counterproductive, given that the goal was to spark psionic abilities in the occupants of the isolation pods.

 ** _Codex: Psionic Defenses, Unlocked._**

Success. Two of the Humans flared to the naked eye, though not to any camera, as the psionic power coming off them in waves flared in the mind, not in reality. The medics jerked away, the physical contact and sheer power of the Humans' reaction overcoming the Mind Shields and the volunteers' pain and exhaustion passing to them.

 ** _Codex: Psionic Effects, Unlocked._**

Now Dr. Vahlen _was_ jumping up and down.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: EXALT:_**

 _EXALT's origins lay in fanatics and conspiracy theorists who realized the invasion was occurring before any other group outside of X-Com. Their informal network was widespread, but badly organized, until they managed to gain possession of several pieces of alien technology, all revolving around Meld and genetic engineering. They managed this by being in the right place, at the right time, while X-Com forces were fighting off the incursion. Or, so it was believed at the time._

 _When they began to use the genetic engineering equipment on themselves it turned out it had all been a trap. Their leader was a Thin Man and used their transhumanist ideals to motivate them to make genetic alterations which made them more vulnerable to psionic control. A single Ethereal was able to control the entire organization, through permanent mental conditioning, enhanced by neural implants and genetic engineering._

 _The Ethereal proved to be a renegade, with goals different from the rest of its species, but not thereby aligned with humanity's, or the Quarians'._

 _Ironically, the organization's origins amongst transhumanist groups and its tendency to shoot at X-Com led to a persistent view amongst the rank-and-file that EXALT's personnel wanted to be Ethereals, or servants thereof. Though this was, in fact, entirely correct, it was viewed as too simplistic and unrealistic by the experts of the day._

 _EXALT's end goals (well, those of its leading Ethereal) remain something of a mystery, but their forces attacked the invaders with the same intensity as they attacked X-Com. Unfortunately, it was not until after the end of EXALT that X-Com realized the reason for that, as they'd believed the organization was what it had originated as, a group of cranks and transhumanists, who might be captured, interrogated and deprogramed. They did not know that EXALT was a prelude for what the Ethereals would have done to all the sapient species of the galaxy, if only they had the chance. This led to many critical misunderstandings and near disasters in engagements with the organization, as all attempts at capture ended in the death of the capturer, the capturee, or both._

 _The end came swiftly for the organization, as, with the death of the Ethereal, the minds it had enslaved never recovered, leaving empty husks, good for nothing but reprocessing to extract the Meld which flowed through their veins and pooled in their organs._

 ** _Codex: Quarian Meld Treatment:_**

 _Early experiments with Meld had had horrific results, both cybernetic and genetic. However, with the influx of data the Migrant Fleet had on genetic and cybernetic enhancements, the results improved dramatically. The Scout Flotilla had few medics and no medical research specialists, but included in the information they handed over to X-Com was information regarding the problems which confined Quarians to their suits._

 _In gratitude for their assistance (and because every Quarian was wearing a suit with an Eezo core which could be used to power shields on an X-Com soldiers armor, if they were able to take it off without dying) resolving the issues with the Quarian immune system was given a high priority. The effort paid off relatively quickly, no more than a month between the time of the first experiments and a prototype treatment which successfully permitted Lin'Nova Vas'Hatak to become the first Quarian in a century to be able to live without his suit._

 _The early stage treatments resolved around simply enhancing the immune system. Though effective, it was extremely costly in terms of Meld used. Later treatments relied more precisely on altering Quarian physiology to produce the chemicals needed to make their bodies act as if they were receiving the inputs their ecosystem had provided pre-Exile._

 ** _Codex: Defense of Dhaka:_**

 _The Defense of Dhaka was not a turning point of the conflict with the Ethereals, It was, however, a turning point in the history of Humanity and in Human-Quarian relations. As Niva'Zorah had never been anything less than completely up front about the Quarians' interests, there hadn't been much in the way of gratitude towards the Quarians. It was a business transaction and both sides got what they wanted. That changed with the assault on Dhaka._

 _The Ethereal's attack on Dhaka was the main thrust of a three pronged assault, intended to land a substantial force, use Chryssalids to clear a zone and establish a beachhead on the surface of Earth. It was the first major assault launched after the Scout Flotilla destroyed the observation ships of the Ethereal's vanguard. The Ethereals held back the majority of the forces that were streaming towards the Solar System to launch the assault, letting through only a trickle of ships to continue testing and observing the shared Human-Quarian defenses._

 _The other two distraction assaults held back the frigates which would have supported the_ Hatak _, while more than thirty ships attempted to capture the cruiser. Only Commodore Zorah's destruction of her ship by using the Eezo core to rip herself and the assaulting ships out of the sky saved the, almost twenty million, people of Dhaka._

 _That assault was no probe however and its repulsion occurred only at a remarkable cost to the Scout Flotilla. The death of Niva'Zorah and the destruction of the_ Hatak _were massive sacrifices to save the lives of Humans, despite the direction of the Commander and X-Com. Moreover, Quarians were heavily involved in eliminating the survivors of the assault fleet, with more lives lost. Within days of the news of their sacrifice and losses leaking (reportedly at the Commander's own order), the Migrant Fleet and Niva'Zorah were the heroes of the day._

 _The discovery that the destroyed Eezo core had created untold thousands of biotics amongst the children of Dhaka would not be made for another generation, but the Eezo core and the crashed Ethereal ships provided critical salvage for the modernization of Earth's forces._

 ** _Codex: Hatak Soldier:_**

 _The Hatak Soldiers take their name from the destroyed cruiser_ Hatak. _They were originally made up of the surviving crew and marines who escaped the vessel after the evacuation was ordered. Their fury towards those who had destroyed their ship and complete lack of anything resembling fear or self-preservation made them famous, if not particularly reliable, soldiers. Indeed, the Commander reportedly once said of them, "I do not command the Hatak soldiery any more than I commanded their namesake. All I can do is unleash them upon our foes. Still, her soldiers do not disappoint any more than she did."_

 _Though usually their recklessness would have resulted in their elimination in short order, after some internal deliberations, they began recruiting from amongst the (many, many) X-Com volunteers from Dhaka and Bangladesh then inducting them into their unit structure. The engineers amongst the Hatak Soldiers equipped these volunteers with modified Quarian equipment._

 _By the end of the war, less than 10% of the members of the unit were Quarian, but Quarian culture had pressed an indelible stamp on the unit, which remains even to this day._

 ** _Codex: Psionic Defenses:_**

 _Psionic defenses take two basic forms. The first is based around the implants in Ethereals and Sectoid Commanders, which were intended to strengthen their psionic ability. These defenses are individual and are based on simply reversing the original purpose of the implant and disrupting any effort to use psionic abilities against the individual wearing them._

 _The original version of this defense, the Mind Shield, required actual implants torn from the bodies of Ethereals, or Sectoid Commanders. Later versions were more artificial. These defenses have two main weaknesses. First, they can simply be removed, if you have physical control over the person wearing them. Second, they can be overpowered, if the psionic is powerful enough and close enough._

 _The second form of defense relies upon the fact that psionic abilities do produce detectible emissions. By jamming the relevant frequencies, you can prevent psionic abilities from functioning. No matter how powerful a psionic is, if you pump the power of a fusion plant into the jammers, you can block their abilities. This has two main downsides as well. First, it means no one on your side can use psionic abilities either. Second, it causes intense vertigo and pain for any psionics in range._

 ** _Codex: Psionic Effects:_**

 _Discovered due to the invasion of the Ethereals, psionic abilities are, in many ways, the mirror image of biotic abilities. Biotics manipulate physical objects, but cannot touch the mind. Psionics manipulate the mind, but cannot touch physical objects._

 _With one exception, those psionic phenomena which appear physical, are, in fact, an artifact of the psionics' effect on the mind of the observer. The purple aura around so many psionics is caused by manipulating what the brain sees. The physical damage caused by a Mindfray attack is caused by tricking the mind into doing things which harm the body. The, misnamed, Telekinetic Field is caused by broadcasting a field which distracts and confuses everyone who looks at it._

 **Author's Note: I'll explain about the Rift psionic ability later. I'm sure a good explanation will come to me by then. Comments and reviews are always welcome.**


	4. Chapter 4: Unknown Opportunities

**Chapter 4: Unknown Opportunities**

 **Author's Note: First, I was editing the previous chapters in response to one of the reviews (see below) and noticed that none of the scene breaks (***) came through when I copied the files out of Word. That's been fixed now. Sorry about that. Without those, the previous chapters sorta...jump all over the place. Thanks for sticking with me. Should be fixed. EDIT: Okay, it wasn't fixed. Should be now. I don't know why it won't let me use asterisks as line breaks, but I assume the (XXXXX) will work.**

 **Now, A few comments in response to reviews:**

 **EXALT being handled all at once: That's a consequence of operating a total, global war. I really enjoyed handling EXALT in X-Com, but there's no reason a global organization charged with saving the planet needs to be nickel and diming their anti-insurgency work. Instead of chasing down one cell at a time, forces were sent anywhere remotely plausible. We only see the headquarters raid which obviously involved heavy forces, but plenty of perfectly innocent alien enthusiasts, or conspiracy cranks got their doors broken down and the shit kicked out of them, along with the EXALT cells who got their doors broken down and shot a bunch of times (and some innocent cranks got shot a bunch of times, though there it was by accident).**

 **X-COM 2 canonicity with this fic/how teleport works given how psionics work here: Now, obviously X-Com 2 isn't going to happen as written. However, it is indeed what would have happened, but for the intervention of the Quarians. Teleport does exist, but it's not a psionic ability, but is rather technology based off their FTL drives.**

 **Shouldn't psionic jammers cause intense pain and vertigo in non-psionics as well? There's a good argument that they should, but I'm conceptualizing this like high frequency sound emitters used to irritate/drive away animals or teenagers. Without the capacity to 'hear' and act on that level, it doesn't affect you.**

 **Codex entries need something to differentiate more between them on the page: Good idea, edits made. Previous chapters should be updated now.**

"Find anything?" Quil'Tana asked, grateful for his suit's air recycling capability as they picked through the remnants of the Ethereal's ground base.

"Lots more fragments. Oh, you meant anything which hadn't been blown to shit? Nah," Lieutenant Duff said, leaning on the wall of the underground base and looking with a mixture of dismay and disgust over the shattered equipment and broken corpses that had been the enemy base. "This is why we should never have come out of the closet. The locals just aren't equipped for this sort of thing and make a hash of it."

Quil glanced at his companion, "Come out of the closet?" he asked, confused.

"Stopped hiding," she glossed, kindly. The blonde Australian lieutenant towered over her shorter comrade and her body armor bulked her out to almost twice his size. Despite the Meld treatment he'd received, he wore his suit, as it hadn't yet been broken down to provide materials for Human body armor and because the odor of the battlefield was likely to be unpleasant. He was an engineer, not a soldier, even if he'd been given a laser pistol to carry here. Even the general odors of the planet gave him trouble, he didn't want to think about how bad the stench of a battlefield would have been. It might even have made him vomit, which was strictly taboo in the all-suited, shipboard life of a Quarian.

"Ah," he added that as an idiomatic translation to the translator. "Well, that's at least guessable from the words, unlike 'cock of the walk,' which did not translate well at all."

"I don't know, 'walking penis' describes Bradford pretty well," she answered with a smirk.

He gave that a slight chuckle, as Humans had trouble reading body language through the suit. "If you say so. I haven't had any luck either. The computer systems are blown to scrap. I've got a few samples of some sort of liquid and what looks like bone fragments, but I can't tell if they're from horrific alien experiments, or from the battle itself."

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when the locals use a regiment in place of a platoon and confuse high explosives with covering fire," Duff said. "And you know you're an alien too, right?"

"From your perspective," Quil countered. Duff sniggered and started to respond, but the small man continued, "And after last night, I didn't think you objected to my experiments."

Duff blushed, an autonomic reaction which continued to both amuse and hypnotize Quil, but her response was firm and lewd as she explained what experiments she had planned for tonight.

 ** _Codex: Quarian-Human Relationships, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

"What happened?" Bradford asked one of the scanner techs.

"It exploded."

"I saw that! Why did it explode?"

"Some sort of self-destruct mechanism," the tech guessed.

"Obviously, but we had the bridge and engineering! How'd they detonate the damn thing?" Bradford snapped. "That's the third shuttle we've lost. I don't think the Quarians are going to loan us anymore." With the _Hatak_ gone and the Migrant Fleet not yet arrived, they needed more ships. Especially as the Ethereals were nibbling away at the octet of frigates. They'd stopped trying to avoid the planet's defenders, instead engaging whenever they reasonably could. Three of the frigates had already been destroyed and the remaining five patrolled as a single unit, letting more and more ships slip past them, despite their best efforts.

"How should I know?" the tech saw the look on his superior's face and added a 'sir'. Then, inadvisably, continued, "For all we know they're setting the damn things off with their minds."

"Be ser—hmmm…fit psionic jammers on half a dozen of the new Skyrangers. We'll take them in atmosphere."

"They'll blast it out of the sky!" the tech pointed out.

"That's not your problem to solve," Bradford said, stalking off in search of Semmi, Dr. Shen and the Commander.

 **XXXXX**

General Van Doorn huddled behind the remains of the lead APC which had been shattered by fire from the Ethereal scout craft holding position above the road. His soldiers were behind him, defending the civilians, while he kept an eye on the scout craft and tried to summon assistance.

The Quarians were not civilians, but they also weren't ground combatants and they'd surrendered their suits for reprocessing to permit them to be used by Humans. The Ethereals had been trying to capture Quarians since they discovered the presence of the second sapient species on the planet. Peter Van Doorn would die before he let that happen. God only knew what they wanted Humans, and now Quarians, for, but he wasn't about to give his enemies any-damn-thing they wanted.

A few of the Quarians had omni-tools equipped for combat and were using them to send **drones** forward to attack the X-Rays pouring from the transport ship which had landed behind the convoy (after shredding the rear APC with plasma fire). The **drones** did well at distracting the wave of Mutons, but the electric shock intended to damage shields didn't do much more than give the giant X-Ray's a little jolt.

Two squads of UN peacekeepers were still alive back there, focusing fire on one X-Ray at a time, while the Mutons were still distracted by **drones** , though Yofi'Seha vas Wuron, leader of this group of Quarians had done the math and warned Van Doorn that they would run out of materials to spawn **drones** before the transport ran out of Mutons. Especially since the soldiers had used most of their grenades repulsing the initial assault.

A radioed command had all his rearguard falling back, collapsing inwards on the remnants of the convoy. His radioed demand produced a response which informed him that, so long as that scoutship remained in the air, no conventional support could get to him. A radioed plea got a response that informed him that the remaining frigates were engaged elsewhere. An unradioed curse got him a glare from the (to his mind) overly-religious Quarian.

"We will not be taken and used against our people," the woman said.

Van Doorn glanced over at her and was a little disconcerted to see that, despite her stillness and the dead level tone of her voice, her face was contorted with fear. This was his second trip escorting Quarians and so the complete inability of Quarians to control their facial reactions (as they'd never had to in a society where they always wore helmets) was only mostly a surprise. Yofi was, as best he could tell, a decade older than his own, mid-forties, though her unwrinkled grey skin and un-grey, cropped short, black hair made that a guesstimate at best.

"I'm open to suggestions," Van Doorn responded.

"There's a high explosive in the truck we were riding in. It should be sufficient to vaporize our bodies. However, you will need to ensure that your people are approximately a hundred meters away and that the destruction of a sphere with a radius of 100 meters will not destabilize this road."

It was a highway in the middle of a city on the ground. Quarians didn't really _get_ planetary stability. Fortunately, every civilian in the range had already fled.

Van Doorn wasn't about to kill the people he'd been charged to protect. "Seriously?" he asked, staring at her for a moment.

"The Commodore gave standing orders. We don't know why they want your bodies or ours, but we won't give these _bosh'tet_ any victory," she explained in same tone she'd had when she discussed her religious beliefs and she explained about the wisdom of her ancestors guiding her. That was how strongly the Quarians viewed the commands of the Commodore, Niva'Zorah, one of the honored dead.

Mind spinning, he came to the obvious solution, eventually. "That ship's got guns, right?" he asked her, looking back at the transport.

"Sure."

"Can you or any of your folks use them to blow that ship out of the sky?" Van Doorn asked.

"We can't even get in there. None of us are infiltrators. We got a couple of techs and a couple of engineers, but no one with significant combat capability."

"Getting you in there is my problem. If I solve it, can you use one of their guns to take out that ship?"

Yofi shrugged, "Maaaaaybe?"

The scout ship fired on a police car which got too close, turning it into a melted hulk, fused to the road. A second blast of plasma fire shattered a ground-to-air missile launched by the locals. "That's better odds than we've got so far. You're with me. Bring any of the Quarians who can be useful."

A few typed commands in her omni-tool would summon them. "And the others?" she asked, before deciding whether or not she would follow his command.

Van Doorn's face was completely blank, in the rather disturbing fashion of humans. "They should stay on the truck," he said. 'with the bomb,' he didn't say, but she heard it.

Yofi nodded and gave the orders. Two other Quarians joined them, one the biggest Quarian Van Doorn had ever seen, hefting a giant wrench meant for repairing Bradleys, the other a tiny little man with a combat knife salvaged from one of the dead soldiers (Humans could use Quarian ranged weapons with minimal difficulty, but the reverse was not true, given the arrangement of their fingers). They both glanced at Yofi, who was clearly senior to either of the youngsters, but they asked the question of the General. "What's the plan?"

"Watch," Van Doorn said to them and, "Now," he said to his radio.

With the Quarian engineers back with him, there were no **drones** on the field and the Human soldiers had fallen back behind a few crashed vehicles. The original convey had been made up of four Bradley Fighting Vehicles full of soldiers, and one truck, full of Quarians and two Tiger attack helicopters on overwatch. The first and last APCs (along with any civilian vehicle that happened to be in the line of sight of the small craft) had been hit with the full power of the invader's weapons, melting them, cooking the crew and passengers alive, and blocking off their ability to either advance or retreat along the road. The helicopters had foolishly tried to engage the enemy craft and lay in smoking heaps beside the highway.

The inner APCs had each taken fire from the transport as it landed, but it didn't deploy the full force of its weapons for fear of destroying the truck which sat at the center of the formation and held the Quarians they had come for. Given the explosions which had followed the impact of plasma fire on the foremost and lattermost APCs, they'd probably made the right call, even without the touchy high explosives on the truck. Presumably they didn't know about the explosives.

Still, that decision had let the soldiers and crew bail out of their disabled APCs. Unfortunately for the enemy, they had failed to recognize that not all of the weapons on the armored vehicles were destroyed. Though neither of the APCs could move, the attacking alien forces ran headlong into fire from the M242, 25 mm chaingun which was the main weapon of the rearmost surviving APC, and from the M240 machine gun which was the secondary weapon of the other surviving APC.

The machine gun wasn't any more effective than the weapon their heavies had carried at the start of the war, except it was more stable, being fixed to the turret and so could put fifty rounds into a target at a time with no difficulty. Even worse for the X-Rays, the chaingun fired rounds three times the size of the machinegun's and its ammunition included high explosive rounds which ripped Mutons apart and armor piercing rounds which ripped through body armor like it was nothing. If they could have kept the vehicles alive under plasma fire, a tank division could have defeated the entire invasion, Van Doorn believed. Of course, Van Doorn had come up as a tank commander.

"With me!" Van Doorn commanded, collecting all eight surviving soldiers as he led them behind the APC whose chaingun was firing. Unfortunately, its turret was partially fused in place, giving it a minimal arc to rotate in, so only by luring the X-Rays into that line could they use it. Fortunately, the Mutons who made up the bulk of the attacking force didn't seem to recognize that. A cluster of Floaters took off from behind the wall of bleeding (and occasionally exploding, when hit with a high explosive round) green flesh. The turrets couldn't rise enough to target the flying X-Rays as they swept over the battlefield, strafing the APCs and the handful of soldiers who were paused in their advance, trying to protect them.

Even the light plasma rifles they carried could melt the armor of the Bradleys, or the pavement of the road, as they peppered the area. The distance, instability of the flying X-Rays and the fact that they were jinking around to dodge ground fire meant that their accuracy wasn't very good. Still, enough were hitting the Bradley, or the ground around it, to begin cooking the crew who'd remained inside to ambush the Mutons. Van Doorn ordered the advance to continue and led the way, hoping to pull the Floaters away from the Bradleys as they slid between the wrecked cars towards the transport. Yofi muttering something into her omni-tool as she followed.

The Floaters ignored the bait and by the time Van Doorn and the troops were in position to make the rush to the entrance to the ship, two of the three remaining Quarians had left the truck and taken up position sitting on the Bradleys, more than making up for the soldiers who'd followed Van Doorn towards the transport ship. Not because of their combat capacity, which was nonexistent, but still the Floaters ceased firing for fear of killing the Quarians they were trying to capture. The third Quarian remained huddled in the truck, regardless of Yofi's order to act as Quarian shields.

As the Quarian took a seat atop the Bradley, Van Doorn finally noticed their presence and glared at Yofi, who ignored the officer's irritation. Given the time pressure, the General didn't bother arguing, instead he glanced around the edge of the cover between them and the transport. A wide open space around the transport, with no cover, but all too many enemies. Van Doorn shouted a command over the sound of short bursts of chaingun fire and longer bursts of machine gun fire, which first targeted the landing Floaters, then when they were ripped apart, turned to join in aiming at the other attacking X-Rays. The crossfire kept most of the X-Rays pinned down, clustered just inside the transport's walls, as most of those outside had been shredded.

A TOW missile burst from the launcher beside the turret and exploded, blowing a hole in the front of the transport. Chaingun and machine gun alike fired to suppress and the General sent a team of three forward. They raced across the open space between cover and the side of the transport opposite to the explosion. The Ethereal's lack of locks came in handy yet again as they breached a door on the other side. The rest of the group crossed as a clump.

The transports all seemed to follow a basic pattern which General Van Doorn had studied, briefly, a while ago. They moved quickly, but stayed out of the main thoroughfare which was still seeing heavy traffic as more X-Rays poured towards the exit of the ship to reinforce the attackers. More TOW missiles fired, impacting the entrance, attempting to collapse it.

The anti-armor weapons weren't great against infantry, but the chaingun was running out of ammunition, as was the machine gun. The surviving crews' effort to swap ammunition between the two Bradleys worked partially, with the crewman able to carry one box of machine gun ammo to the Bradley with the functional machine gun. The return trip ended with the man on the ground, his chest a concave, smoking hollow.

The assault team was in position, outside both entrances to the bridge, having used a few **drones** as distractions to escape notice until they reached the bridge. While they'd moved, General Van Doorn had quickly briefed the team on tactics for breaching the bridge and neutralizing the crew there, at least as well as he could without any actual experience with the X-Rays and with no idea how many, or what variety of X-Rays would be on the flight deck.

About the time they reached the entrances to the bridge, the chaingun fell silent. The Quarian sitting atop that Bradley hopped down and tried to escort the crew back to the other crippled Bradley, whose machine gun was still firing. A quartet of Muton Berserkers emerged from the transport and rushed forward. Machinegun fire and small arms fire from the panicking and fleeing Bradley crew managed to down one, but the other three reached the cluster and ripped apart the unarmored soldiers easily and captured the Quarian even more easily. She fought, but with neither weapon, nor armor, she was extremely ineffective.

There was a shocking silence as the other Bradley ceased fire rather than hit the girl. The Berserkers turned on the, suddenly-still, second Bradley. Victory gleamed in their dull eyes and one held up the Quarian as a living shield and began to approach the other Bradley. The gunner stared for a moment. There was only one course of action, but the Quarian was just a girl, barely more than a child and she was so scared. It was written all over her face. Still, she'd gone to defend his brothers in arm with no weapons, no armor, no nothing. He couldn't kill her for that. His commander and the other crewman were dead, there was no one else to save. He couldn't kill her to save himself, even if the alternative was them both dying.

Suddenly a thumping and screaming from the top of the APC penetrated his distraction. "FIRE THE GUN, BOSH'TET! IF YOU LET THEM TAKE HER ALIVE I WILL PISS ON YOUR ASHES!"

 ** _Codex: Quarian Insults, Unlocked._**

The Quarian voice penetrated the momentary fog and the soldier fired automatically, forcing himself to watch. No one would ever know if he was crying as the bullets tore her, and the Berserkers who'd through to hide behind her, apart. If they'd tried to take cover, or charge, they might have stood a chance, but they'd thought they were safe.

Without the chaingun, the single machinegun couldn't hold for long. General Van Doorn knew that and gave the order (after reminding them to do their best to try not to blow up the controls they needed to use). Fortunately, the room only had a pair of Thin Men and an Outsider while the assault team had the advantage of surprise. "DON'T KILL THEM IN HERE!" Van Doorn shouted to the trio of soldiers rushing each of the Thin Men. The last thing he needed was a toxic cloud filling the bridge and preventing the Quarians from using it.

The Thin Men were stronger than they looked, but with one man on each arm and a third behind the X-Rays, holding their mouth shut to prevent them from spitting poison at anyone, they weren't able to do much.

The Outsider was more troublesome, but one of Van Doorn's pair of remaining soldiers tackled him while the other was getting shot in the head. They struggled for a moment before the General arrived and pulled the rifle from the Outsider's hands. Van Doorn pulled out his combat knife and waited for the Outsider to get the upper hand. It did, rolling the soldier onto his back and going for a chokehold.

A knife in the spine killed it as easily as any Human, though getting it in there was a bit trickier and required a great deal more force. Even more bizarre was the part where the Outsider curled in on itself, wrapping its body into a gemlike shard.

While Van Doorn had been handling the Outsider, outside, Yofi had given an order to the larger of her two engineers, then led the other inside. They began to work, three fingered hands dancing over Ethereal controls, omni-tools and the Outsider corpse alike.

Van Doorn considered asking how long it would take, then considered the Quarians outside, acting as living shields for his men and decided that that would be a stupid question. He did poke his head outside to set up the guards (and, incidentally, see what the fuck was going on with the third Quarian). The big man swung his heavy wrench like a baseball bat, crushing the Thin Man's skull like tissue paper. The X-Ray had been propelled forward by the three soldiers who'd dragged it from the flight deck and were now standing far enough back not to be caught in the toxic cloud it expelled when it died, unlike the wrench-wielding Quarian.

The soldiers (who weren't holding the other, writhing, Thin Man) stared in shock at the cloud. They clearly hadn't really believed it would release a green cloud of toxic gas the moment it died, despite the warnings from X-Com and the General. Van Doorn opened his mouth to curse all of them out for being fucking idiots and endangering one of their protectees when the Quarian walked out of the cloud and took up position on the other end of the hall, awaiting the second Thin Man's arrival. "What the hell?" he asked weakly, instead.

The senior NCO of the surviving troops, a Corporal Bennet, replied, "Sir, he said he was immune to their poison. Something about having different DNA? Seems to work."

"All right," the General was stunned for a moment, then glared pointedly at the four (including the one who'd followed him out, soldiers now just standing around. The Corporal got the message and got everyone moving into cover where they could fire on anyone who approached, not that their H&K G36s were great weapons against the aliens. The Outsider's weapon was unusable by them, but the light plasma rifles the Thin Men had carried were usable by people with five fingers. Van Doorn let the NCO determine who would wield those weapons, as they should be carried by the best shots and he had no clue who that was.

The second Thin Man was propelled to where the large Quarian was standing. He tried desperately to avoid the oncoming mass of a four foot long wrench, propelled by a man half a foot taller than Van Doorn's six feet. So, instead of having his skull crushed, he had his shoulder smashed and lived long enough to spit poison up at the looming Quarian. A savage set of stomps killed the X-Ray and the Quarian came out of the toxic cloud without damage to anything but his boots.

"Just like _Tel'ro_ back in the Fleet," the Quarian said cheerfully. Then he almost tripped over his own feet as the blood tried to fuse to the deck. "Well, pretty close anyway."

 ** _Codex: Tel'ro, Unlocked._**

Before the General could think of a response to that, let alone say it, the engineer was gone to join his fellows in the flight deck. As with the other transport ships, the flight deck was a brief, separate structure built on the same superstructure as the rest of the ship, but separated by an open space, which raised question in Van Doorn's mind about how it was accessed while the ship was in space.

The Corporal placed himself and his six remaining soldiers to guard its approaches. One went topside and watched the sides and back, while the other six of them took position near the entrances to the main cargo bays, where they could pick off X-Rays as they passed through the natural chokepoints of the doors and waited.

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the ship, the machinegun fire had kept the organic enemies at bay, but the X-Rays finally managed to get a Sectopod out of storage and through the narrow halls of the transport. The machine gun didn't do more than scratch the paint and the TOW missile launcher on the surviving APC was nonfunctional. The mech advanced and the Quarian atop the APC began to consider whether she could trigger the explosive on the truck before being cut down, or caught.

A squeak escaped her lips when the top of the APC opened and the gunner grabbed her around the waist, pulling her inside. He sealed it back up and they huddled together inside, hoping the Sectopod would not kill them, the scout ship above would not kill them, or carry them off, and that something, anything, would happen to save them.

The Sectopod stepped forward and disdained using any of its weapons on the APC, for fear of destroying its gooey Quarian center. Instead a solid stomp smashed all the weapons on the APC's turret. After a moment, the more squishy members of the X-Ray force advanced on the truck and dragged the lone Quarian inside from it, kicking and screaming.

The Quarian inside the APC swore and tried to trigger the bomb with her omni-tool, but the device didn't go off. She couldn't tell whether there was a mechanical problem, it had sustained some damage from the firefight, or the X-Rays had finally decided to jam communications. More X-Rays approached and began to pry at the hatch. Fortunately, the one in the turret had been jammed by the Sectopod's stomp. Unfortunately, the one on the back of the Bradley wasn't going to stand up to the muscle of that many Mutons. Not once they managed to get a rope anchored to it.

As for Van Doorn, he'd resisted manfully, but finally caved and went into the bridge to see how it was going. Yofi was working on her omni-tool while one of the men was working on a console and the other working on the crystal that was the Outsider's corpse. He asked the obvious question and received the obvious response, then went back outside.

Van Doorn didn't know if the Ethereals suddenly realized the bridge crew were dead, or the Quarians tripped some sort of alarm, or the crew of the scout ship had finally informed the ground troops that they'd snuck across, or something more esoteric occurred, but suddenly there was movement towards them. Fortunately, the full contingent of Floaters seemed to have been eliminated and the scout ship chose not to destroy the transport's flight deck, so they didn't need to worry about an air assault. Even more fortunately, the Sectopod remained to guard the APC (not that he knew that) rather than attempt the narrow halls of the transport a second time. However, despite the casualties taken due to their own stupidity, there were still a good sized pack of Mutons approaching, led by a few Thin Men.

Their position was good. Their weapons were not. The Thin Men went down easily enough, their toxic cloud poisoning the shock troops which followed them, but the Mutons' armor shed the 5.56 NATO rounds fired by the soldiers' rifles. A lucky hit to the throat, or one of the joints might get through, but the vast majority of the shots produced nothing but sparks and ricochets. The two recovered plasma rifles did much better. Only the fact that they were picking off the Mutons one at a time as they came through the doors let them hold for as long as they did. So when the Muton Elite leading the pack led a group in a brief flanking attack, they were completely fucked.

Inside the flight deck, Yofi was slicing through the Ethereal's computer security easily enough. She'd trained to counter Geth electronic warfare, the Ethereals had nothing on the enemy AI. The problem was connecting with the ship's systems at all. By her side, tiny Tlav'Kinna, who she'd once had to beat the shit out of for setting the artificial gravity in her ex's quarters to five times Rannoch normal, had finally finished the makeshift interface between her omni-tool and the Outsider Shard. Gigantic Garl'Miva had their best translation program running and was handling the other end of the interface, that between the Shard and the computer systems. The hardware connection had been a beast to set up and was almost equally irritating to manage. It would have been impossible if they hadn't studied the Ethereal tech already (indeed, they'd been heading to a lab in Berlin to provide research support before everything had gone wrong).

Even worse was the software connection. The fact that Quarians worked in base 6, while the Ethereals used base 20 was only the beginning of the trouble. If she'd been trying to do anything more complicated than point and shoot, then there would have been no chance of success. As it was, the chance was still minimal and not helped by the fact that she could not get five seconds of quiet.

At least the guns on the Humans primitive armored vehicles had finally shut up and the plasma weapons carried by the invaders were relatively quiet, but the chemically powered guns wielded by the majority of the Humans were almost unbearably loud. She'd never thought she'd miss her helmet once she was finally able to take it off, but she really wanted its sound dampeners as she tried once more to make the system respond.

Finally she was in the right system, brought the weapons online and got the aiming system working. It was simple enough. The plasma cannon placed above the main cargo hold swung into alignment and she could see from the cameras built into it that it was lined up properly, but the ship would not fire while the weapon was aimed at another Ethereal ship.

"Well, shit."

A moment's thought and she brought another cannon online and into alignment and set them to fire as quickly as possible and simultaneously. Shots passed under the scout ship, superheating the air beneath it and lifting it up into the shots coming from the second cannon, which had been aimed the minimum distance above the scout ship which the system would allow.

Through the cameras, she could see the remnants of the smaller craft fall from the sky. Only then did it occur to her to check and see if the plasma rounds would hit anything before leaving the atmosphere, or dissipating. They wouldn't.

Garl headed back out, though he didn't stick his head out of the protection of the flight deck's walls. "Got it. Ship's down," his announcement came about ten seconds before the crack of fire from the soldier standing atop the bridge's roof and his announcement that three Mutons and an 'even fucking BIGGER space-orc, with an even FUCKING bigger gun' was coming around the south side of the ship.

"Radios are still jammed. Can you fix it?" Van Doorn asked, waving a hand at his soldiers.

Moments later, half a dozen grenades flew towards the charging Mutons. Despite not sticking their heads out of cover, with guidance from the soldier on overwatch, four of the six managed to land amongst the enemy. One was kicked away by the Muton Elite, exploding harmlessly in the air between the two groups of combatants. The other three exploded, shrapnel scything down two of the regular Mutons and bloodying both the last Muton and their leader. It did not, however, slow their charge, though it did prompt the last surviving Muton to pound its chest and scream as it rushed them.

In turn, a grenade flew ahead of the Muton Elite as it ran, the plasma fire sweeping away cover and three of Van Doorn's soldiers with equal ease. Garl dropped a **drone** between the two groups.

"No chance I can do anything about the jammers. I can't even find them," Yofi answered, joining the others outside the flight deck and following up Garl's **drone** with one of her own as the Muton shattered Garl's **drone** with a casual punch, ignoring the burst of electricity that flared as the tiny VI driven **drone** died.

"Anyone got any grenades left?" Van Doorn asked the group at large as a Muton burst through the chokepoint the, now-dead, soldiers had been guarding. A shot from their lone remaining plasma rifle staggered the massive creature and Garl dropped another **drone** to delay it.

"I'm out," he announced loudly, a few moments after the soldiers announced that they too had run out of grenades (having used most of them in the initial defense of the convoy). None of the Quarians had the right programs to fabricate grenades, not that their omni-tools had much a reserve of omni-gel without their suits and this late in the battle.

"Fall back. Fry their system if you can," he shouted to the Quarian still in the bridge.

"Done. I've pulled everything I can from the system and cooked it," the smaller Quarian yelled back.

"Run for it," Van Doorn yelled, matching words to actions, though he made sure he was behind Yofi and not just for the view. The Corporal took the lead, dropping over the edge of the ship, landing hard, but still moving. "Circle us around back towards the APCs!" Van Doorn screamed before emptying his rifle in the general direction of the, swiftly-growing, pack of Mutons which was bursting off the ship.

Between suppressing fire from him and the two other slowest soldiers and a few **drones** dropped (by the Quarian engineers who still had whatever they used to create the artificial constructs), they managed to lengthen their lead, until they rounded the corner of the large ship and ran straight into the Sectopod, still guarding the crippled APC.

The mech's chest cannon vaporized the Corporal and the other soldier acting as their vanguard. Garl had the sense to step back, staying in the cover of the ship's body. A shouted warning stopped the others (except Tlav, who was running too fast, overshot and ran right into a shot) but with the Mutons behind them, the situation was desperate. The General didn't want to send them off into the city, for fear of leading the Mutons toward wherever the civilians were hiding.

Still, he had a mission to complete. "Into the city!" he ordered. They made it almost two blocks before the flight of attack helicopters arrived, spitting missiles. The Mutons' plasma rifles took down two of the choppers, but the Mutons died as well. An airstrike took out the Sectopod, miraculously without killing the pair trapped in the Bradley, though it would be several hours before they could be rescued. The escape pod that launched from the transport, carrying the lone captured Quarian was shot down before escaping the atmosphere. There were no survivors.

Van Doorn sat in the parked helicopter waiting for the last two of the people he was responsible for to be pried out of the wreckage of the Bradley. He'd started out with six Quarians, four Bradleys, two Tigers, sixteen crewmen and twenty seven soldiers, plus himself and the driver of the truck. Fifty one people. Two soldiers, one APC crewman, three Quarians and him were all that was left. Seven, out of fifty one. Less than fifteen percent of his people had survived. He'd been there to make sure nothing went wrong while dealing with the Quarians.

He snorted to himself. Well, he'd failed completely at that.

Yofi was trying to prevent Garl from giving directions to the Humans prying his sister out of the Bradley, but after three attempts, she threw up her hands and gave up, leaving the giant to irritate the combat engineers and joined Van Doorn. She took a seat next to him, as if they were old friends. "Well done, Peter," she said, using his first name, as he'd requested when they'd met, was it only six hours earlier?

He glared at the older woman, who smiled back at him. "I don't find this very damn funny. They killed almost all my boys. I'm bringing back three of them."

"And three of us," she noted, looking away from him, trying to keep her expression private. "And you."

"Seven. So impressive."

"There were twenty _billion_ Quarians when the Geth rose against us. There are eighteen _million_ now. You did better than we did. But," she looked back at him, expression odd, "we're still here, even a hundred years later. And now we walk free of our suits again. Your people did that, and we will not forget it, nor will we forget that half of our people survived here, only by the sacrifice of your soldiers. And it was a sacrifice, General, not a defeat, not a failure. They tried to kidnap us, Ancestors alone know why, they want us, alive and dead alike, and they got nothing. And that is how we'll beat them," she leaned against him, taking the support she needed after a hell of a day and offering it in turn.

He relaxed and let his head come to rest against her short-cropped black hair. It helped. Not as much as it should have, but it helped.

 ** _Codex: Peter and Yofi, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

"What the fuck is that?" Abda'Tova Vas Lorion asked, staring at her monitor.

Her captain leaned over her shoulder and glanced at it. "Might be background radiation?"

"That's what I thought, but look," she flicked up a historical analysis, "it spikes whenever the X-Ray behavior changes, see," she tapped a spike, "this is when the _Hatak_ intervened at Dhaka; this," she tapped another spike, "this was after we took out their fleet behind this planet's moon," a final tap, "and this was just before that battleship attacked Mexico City."

"Localize the source," the captain ordered, leaving her to the horribly difficult task.

"Yes, sir," Abda replied, grumpily.

 **XXXXX**

Lieutenant Kal'Tova, liaison officer between the remnants of the Migrant Fleet present in this system and the ever-expanding Human planetary defense coalition, was a very busy man. Every military leader on the planet had ideas about how his force of five frigates could best defend the planet (even if most of those ideas consisted of: 'defend my country, and, I guess, if you have time, also our allies'). He was, therefore, absolutely ecstatic to be having a conversation about an actual, tactical, operation. If it was one that didn't threaten the destruction of his ships, he'd have been even more ecstatic.

Still, "It's got to be some sort of stealth ship. That's the only thing that makes sense. If we can retrofit it to our ships, we've got a chance to hold out. Sooner or later they're going to get lucky and drop battleship right in the middle of our ships and rip us apart. We need that tech."

 ** _Codex: Ethereal Stealth Technology, Unlocked._**

"We need our frigates intact. We've captured three ships intact on the ground and haven't managed to get them back off it, except in pieces, carried by other craft. Even if we manage to keep them from blowing themselves up, which I doubt, no offense, Bradford, I think we still end up crashing into the planet," Semmi countered.

"No news from the Berlin lab, then?" Dr. Vahlen put in.

"No breakthrough that will let us steal their ships, no," Semmi responded.

"Still, with the psionic dampeners on a couple of Skyrangers, I think we have a good chance of taking the ship," Bradford argued.

"Maybe so, but those same jammers will screw with the interface we're building between our tech and theirs, even if that interface is just an Outsider charge plugged into an omni-tool," Semmi pointed out.

"We believe they're observing us and communicating with the Ethereal fleet. We can't have that. If they detect the approaching boarding party and move, will you be able to track them?" the Commander asked, after a long moment of thought.

"Not until they communicate again."

"Then blast them out of my sky and we'll get on with our lives."

"Yes sir," the group chorused, except for Dr. Vahlen and Dr. Shen who were already discussing the scientists and engineers who should be assigned to the job of sifting through the wreckage, looking for anything which would be useful, or enlightening.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Quarian-Human Relationships:_**

 _If you're looking for the entry on relations between Quarians and Humans as species, you want Quarian-Human Relations._

 _Quarians and Humans have the highest rate of interspecies relationships except for the Asari and everyone/anyone else. These relationships are limited by the dextro-levo barriers and, obviously, infertility. Less obviously, they are also limited by the pressure on Quarians to reproduce to ensure none of their, relatively limited, genetic diversity is lost._

 _Pushing the other way are the close proximity of the two species, similar standards of beauty, the lure of the exotic and societal programming as a vast number of Quarian-Human relationships appear in fiction and amongst the heroes of the Ethereal War. And sometimes both at once._

 _The persistent rumor of a relationship between the Commander of X-Com and Commodore Zorah survived both of them and the fact that there's no evidence for it, or that they were ever alone together. To true believers, that's just more evidence, as surely those two could have found a way._

 _Every few years, these relationships result in a well-publicized fatality amongst young people too stupid, or too horny to take appropriate precautions against the potential effects of interspecies relationships, despite the widespread availability of various devices to minimize those risks. Indeed, the interspecies relationships have given rise to a minor industry of such products. It is anticipated that this industry may expand if relations are ever opened with the Turian Hierarchy and the rest of the Council Species._

 ** _Codex: Quarian Insults:_**

 _Most sapient species share a large number of insults and curse words, revolving around defecation, waste, low status indicators and (with the exception of the Asari) fornication. However, for more culturally specific insults, translators generally don't work, on the theory that meaning would be lost (and that they might provoke unfortunate reactions). For Quarians, this includes the most common insult/curse, Bosh'tet. A literal translation would be something along the lines of 'disgraceful thing, person, or situation'_

 _This is in line with the majority of other Quarian insults, which revolve around the idea that a person has failed to live up to their responsibilities to their ship, the Fleet, their family, or, worst of all, their ancestors. The remaining insults generally turn around more conventional insults directed towards the other party's ship, family, or, worst of all, the corpse or character of their ancestors._

 ** _Codex: Tel'ro:_**

 _This traditional Quarian game was somewhat similar to baseball, only with multiple routes through the bases, three pitchers and two hitters. The original rules were elaborate, but they required large amounts of open space, which wasn't, generally, available in the Migrant Fleet. So a modified version was created. A player took position at a central intersection, and the ball is thrown. The batter uses a piece of equipment, often, though not always, a wrench, to send the ball flying, then takes off down one of the four corridors, seeking the, predesignated, 'Rannoch' which gives them victory._

 _The pitcher's teammates then pursue the ball. Once one of them has captured it, they attempt to block the hitter's path, while the hitter's teammates attempt to clear it. However, no one is allowed to interfere with the player who has retrieved the ball and only that player can bring the round to an end by capturing the player. Besides entertaining players and teaching them some hand-to-hand skills, it also provides practice moving quietly throughout the ship, useful in case of boarding._

 ** _Codex: Peter and Yofi:_**

 _The love story between Peter Van Doorn and Yofi'Seha is extremely famous. Whether for the tragic ending, or its long term impacts on Human-Quarian relations, it has spawned thirteen films, two holo series, three video games, a clothing line and a high-end line of omni-tools over the last century._

 _*ALERT. UNAUTHORIZED EDITS MAY HAVE BEEN MADE TO THIS ENTRY. ADMIN IS IN PROCESS OF REVIEWING AND EDITTING*_

 _But the only one worth seeing is 2046's_ The Girl and the General _, with Grisham St. James as General Van Doorn. The teenage hottie easily carries off the gravitas of the General and the addition of a subplot about Yofi's familial reaction is just brilliant!_

 ** _Codex: Ethereal Stealth Technology_**

 _Ethereal stealth technology has remained the subject of study by government labs, corporations and independent cranks alike. Despite clear evidence of its existence, no references have been found in any Ethereal database and no working copies of the technology were ever captured._

 _The current best guess is some sort of combination of known stealth techniques, based around a larger scale, longer lasting, **tactical cloak** and heat storage technology, based around the higher thermal storage of Alien Alloys. That remains a best guess and is still difficult to believe, given that the one example we have held in place for some months, while current estimates are that after about two weeks the crew would start to cook inside their own ship, unless they could vent heat. _

**Author's Note: Though usually Outsider Shards only come when they're stunned, rather than killed, the means here used isn't one available in the game. I tend to think that the Outsider's Shard is lost when it dies with the weapon in its hand because some sort of feedback from the destruction of its weapon destroys it. As it doesn't die with the weapon in its hand, that doesn't happen here.**

 **The other question is why the weapons aren't destroyed. I believe that they must be with the X-Ray when they die for that to happen. Once the aliens are captured and interrogated, they appear to be killed (indeed, they seem to be killed during questioning), but their weapons remain intact.**

 **Reviews/comments are always welcome.**


	5. Chapter 5: Unknown Ship

**Chapter 5: Unknown Ship**

 **Author's Note: Six Samurai of Dragon Order did a video review of this story. It's available on youtube at uqnRrCC8QQI. To address his main issue, the characters in the tags (Tali, Wrex, Shepard and Joker) will start showing up in Chapter 8, when we jump to the present.**

Semmi stood on the floor of _Shellen_ , the only person on that floor not wearing a suit. Three hundred of his fellows were there. Leaders of every political group of the Conclave, all the admirals, representatives of each of the surviving religions, two dozen medical doctors and three times as many doctors in other fields. The _Shellen_ had been chosen as it was the only Liveship whose captain wasn't connected to him and the Zorah family in some way. The Fleet's best effort at neutral ground, not that it was very neutral, everyone knew everyone at his level in the Fleet.

The Humans had wanted to send someone along with him. The news of the arrival of the Migrant Fleet had triggered all their paranoia and within ten minutes of the Fleet taking up position around Earth the Quarian status had shifted from 'noble allies' to 'presumptive invaders, probably in league with the Ethereals.'

Still, Semmi had convinced the Humans to let him go alone. It was a little embarrassing that he'd convinced them far more easily than he was convincing his own people. The debate had been raging for hours, between those who wanted to run off with the knowledge they'd already gained and those who wanted to stay and fight.

Still, the plain fact that they didn't know how Meld was made, or how they could make more of it, was carrying the day, along with the potential for more discoveries as more and larger Ethereal craft continued to appear.

The traditionalists were desperate to leave so as not to lose momentum towards their ultimate goal of reclaiming Rannoch, but with the possibility of suitless existence right here, that dream was fading in importance, especially as the fleet was currently in the midst of one of its periodic limitations on reproduction. Open worlds meant that limit would disappear. The more realistic amongst them realized that meant they had a shot at building up their forces to the point where retaking Rannoch was actually feasible. The most realistic realized that it probably meant that they would never bother, why fight for a lost homeworld when you had a new one to build right here?

The militarists were split. The whole reason for their existence was to fight, but they wanted to fight the Geth. However, they couldn't turn their back on this fight, not with one of their most prominent members dead on the field. Niva's sacrifice bore weight in the Conclave, just as it had on Earth. He wondered sometimes if she'd understood the politics of that sacrifice, or only the strategy of it…

The pacifists were equally split, as they didn't want to fight, but did want to settle somewhere and didn't want to watch people be massacred.

The scientists wanted more breakthroughs and more time with the new science which was being discovered every day. But they also wanted to not be shot at while doing that. The vote was close. Embarrassingly close. But in the end, they agreed to stay and ordered the admirals to defend the planet.

Then came a moment of truth, which passed when the admirals accepted that order, rather than reject it and resign.

Ten minutes later, ships were scattering from the planet like shrapnel from a massive explosion. Some raced towards Jupiter to begin construction of refueling platforms. Others headed towards the asteroid belt to begin mining resources. Still others took up position to defend the Liveships, while the Liveships themselves prepared to act as artillery platforms. The Patrol Fleet was dispatched to scout the surrounding space, focusing on their best guess as to the direction the Ethereals were coming from, while the Heavy Fleet took up position and waited for either information on the enemies' whereabouts, or for the enemy themselves to arrive.

And Semmi was sent back down to the planet, this time with a massive escort to begin negotiating more formal alliances with the powers of the planet. Well, those powers still in power. The leak of information regarding EXALT had done a great deal of damage to planetary unity and the constant attacks, even as they were intercepted by the Quarians and X-Com had left many planetary polities appearing powerless and ineffectual. The sight of more than one leader falling to Cyberdiscs or Sectopods which shed the bullets of the leader's guards like water, only to fall to the weapons of X-Com Soldiers, or Quarian Marines, left an impression on the people.

 ** _Codex: Supply Shortages During the Ethereal War, Unlocked._**

It had taken an absurdly long time for the Fleet to even begin to move, as they'd been paralyzed with indecision until the news of the Meld treatment had broken. That had broken the deadlock and gotten the Fleet moving. Those months had cost lives and nations on Earth, and amongst the flotilla defending the planet. Fortunately, that information was mostly confined to the Fleet. The Humans believed it was merely a matter of the logistics of moving fifty thousand ships and eighteen million people across the galaxy which had taken so long and so the Quarians image as defenders of humanity remained intact.

For now.

Mostly.

Despite the delay, the vote was over, the decision had now been made and the Fleet was committed. Irrevocably.

 **XXXXX**

"It's not like they're irrevocably committed to defense of the planet," the Spokesman pointed out.

"It's better than anything we've had so far and they've provided significant stores of Element Zero. Shield production has quadrupled and we've begun construction of our own spaceships. Based on their designs, admittedly, but we're still far better off than we were," the Commander countered.

"How long before we have any ships actually ready?" the Spokesman asked rhetorically.

"Shuttles can be done within the month, but we're using Quarian hardware and software. Larger, interstellar, armed craft? Depends on if we just use their designs, or try to make our own."

"And what do you propose to say to people who ask about the _fifty thousand_ alien craft in our system?" the Spokesman asked acerbically.

"They aren't shooting at us?" the Commander suggested.

"This is why the Council didn't want you to be the visible face of X-Com. Or for X-Com to have a visible face," the Spokesman continued. He was getting heavy pressure from the Council and passed it along to the responsible party, with added sarcasm.

"Yes, sir," the Commander agreed.

"I'll handle it. Finish this war, before some idiot manages to talk us into one with the Quarians."

"Seriously, sir?"

"You know your history. How long after the Allied Powers defeated the Axis Powers did the Allies turn into NATO and the Soviet Union and both groups to start pointing guns at each other?"

"Fair point, sir, but we can't eat the same food, or really seek to colonize the same planets. I'd think we could work with them."

"You'd think so, but we'll see. Finish this _fucking_ war, Commander and we can see," the Spokesman concluded, swearing for the first time in the Commander's experience with him.

"Yes, sir," the Commander repeated.

 **XXXXX**

"In the course of this war, a hundred and thirty ships have attacked this world. Nine Migrant Fleet vessels destroyed more than half of those ships at a cost of less than half of their own number. Those were vessels of the Patrol Fleet, our reconnaissance and exploration arm. Now there are approximately fifty thousand Migrant Fleet vessels in this system. This world has never been so safe," Admiral Pol'Vega explained to the news anchor who sat across the overly shiny desk from her. None of the admirals had undergone the Meld treatment yet, nor would they, until there was some confirmation that it didn't have any unintended effects, so she wore her suit, despite the interview she'd been scheduled for.

"But the invaders can appear anywhere, with no warning," the anchor countered. The anchor appeared to have been chosen for his beauty, not his brains, as the questions were being fed to him by his earpiece, which her systems could easily pick up and he seemed hypnotized by his own reflection in her helmet. Still, he was very pretty.

"Fortunately, we're everywhere around this planet. And will remain everywhere until the Patrol Fleet finds the main body of the enemy fleet and we can destroy it."

"Some people might not find the idea of alien ships being everywhere comforting," the anchor replied after a moment's hesitation.

"Well, Paul," she winced internally at the man's name, so like her own, but absurdly assigned to a man, "I understand their concerns and if any of your nations wish us not to defend them, all they have to do is ask and we will stay out of their airspace. We have no interest in going where we're not wanted. However, the vote in the General Assembly was unanimous." Which was true, though Israel had had to vote by proxy due to…political issues and North Korea's representative had been recalled and executed for his vote, though the vote itself hadn't been withdrawn.

"Of course, of course, but," his eyes narrowed and she realized that he was going off-script as his words did not follow the transcript on her HUD, "that's not really the question. We're none of us so stupid as to turn away an ally when the enemy is battering at our gate, but I wonder what that ally will want when the enemy is driven off."

"Ask your real question, Paul," she said, watching the transcript of his earpiece grow more colorful, as well as more filled with capitalization, but he ignored it.

"What will the Migrant Fleet do after the invaders are defeated?"

"That depends on Humanity and the Migrant Fleet. If it were up to me, however? I'd hope we could settle nearby. Not on Earth, both because it's full and," she forced humor into her voice, "because we can't eat the food, but I'd like to be somewhere in the same system."

"Why?"

"We were alone in our war with the Geth, just as you were alone in your war with the Ethereals, before our arrival. I would rather neither of our people ever have to face such a threat alone. We are stronger together. Mexico City proved that. Dhaka proved that. Every engagement fought by Quarians and Humans against these invaders has proven that."

"And what do you say to those who claim that you are allied with our invaders and all this is a ruse to let you conquer us without a shot being fired?" he asked.

"I say that my name is Pol'Vega Vas'Levshepa. When Niva'Zorah was still Nar'Levshepa, my son went with her on his pilgrimage. He died capturing the _Hatak_ with her," the Admiral's voice was dead-level. "After that, she was the closest thing I had to a child. The ship and the girl my son died for, fell defending Dhaka," her voice began to rise, "I will see those responsible for that dead, unto the last and least of them. Their voices will be silenced, their losses unmourned, their ancestors unrevered, their ambitions unrealized and their ships broken," her voice dropped back to its normal register from its furious tone. "That is what I would tell those who question our motives and intentions. And that is what _we_ will show them. Together."

The anchor nodded, pulled to the inside of that 'we'.

 **XXXXX**

Semmi was hiding. Dr. Vahlen was working. This worked out well for Semmi, as the good doctor's lab, though always a good place to hide from folks, was an absolutely fantastic place to hide when she was working. Even X-Com's elite tended to avoid it, for fear (or in caution, at least) of the sounds, sights and smells which came out of the place when she was working. But it had been weeks since she'd needed to 'interrogate' or dissect any of the X-Rays, so their concerns were out of date.

Mostly.

A minor explosion came from where Dr. Vahlen was standing. Fortunately, the armored suit they'd adapted for her from its original purpose of keeping a Quarian alive could still do its job. Her two assistants, one Human, one Quarian, were far enough back not to be caught in the explosion and Vahlen herself was unperturbed by the explosion. Semmi was not. "How could there possibly be an explosion? You're doing genetics research, aren't you?"

"Meld," she said, as if that was an answer. Then stepped back and brushed off her suit, twitching a hand towards the remote, rewinding the television in the corner by a minute or so. She always kept a television on as she worked, Semmi assumed it was to provide background noise. He used such things himself, though mostly to sleep (after growing up on a ship, even with the air circulation system, the X-Com base was disturbingly quiet). As usual the television was tuned to one of the Humans 24-hour news programs.

"That's not actually an explanation," Semmi noted quietly.

All three of the scientists turned on him and, he assumed, glared at him through their protective equipment. "Yes, it is."

"Okay, okay," he held up his hands defensively. "I didn't come down here to pick a fight."

Vahlen turned back to the television. "She did well," she noted, addressing one of his interests, as she'd been taught was courteous.

Semmi glanced up at the screen. It was a repeat of Admiral Vega's interview. "Of course she did. Admiral of the Civilian Fleet? She's got as much practice politicking as anyone and she's practically part of the Zorah family. Good choice by the Conclave."

"She was chosen for her familial connections to the dead?" Vahlen asked as she was taking a seat before a console and getting back to work.

"Amongst other things. The Migrant Fleet isn't leaving first contact up to chance." Vahlen nodded politely, as did her aides, caring far more about the work they were doing than the problem with his statement, but he corrected it, eventually. "Well, not for the second part of the first contact."

"That's nice," Vahlen said, trying to conceal her absolute disinterest. She didn't try very hard. Nor did she succeed.

Before Semmi could respond one of the Quarian aides entered the lab, as she'd come with Migrant Fleet and didn't understand why she should have avoided the lab. "The representatives of Australia and New Zeeland are here to speak with you regarding landing zones and flight patterns. The Indonesian ambassador is also here and insists on speaking with you before you speak with them."

Semmi drew himself up and forced his face back into its calm mode, with rather a lot of difficulty. "Of course, of course. Let's get back to work…"

 **XXXXX**

"Twenty ships, two light-minutes out. Fourteen battleships, six larger transports."

"Back to FTL, get us clear," Captain Tial'Raan Vas'Kilop snapped.

They dropped out almost two light days away, less than a minute later, flipping over and firing the main engines to slow down so they could return to Earth with the location of the Ethereal fleet. It was the largest one yet encountered and the first one to contain more than one battleship.

They were approximately ten light days out, a single frigate, one of hundreds spreading out along the arc by which the Ethereals approached the Migrant Fleet (and Earth). Reversing course would take almost an hour. A sharp order had his comms officer working on putting together a package with the full analysis of their sensor readings of the enemy squadron to provide to the Fleet.

They needed to get word back. If the Heavy Fleet could get back before the battleships scattered, they'd smash the squadron and cripple the enemy. There was a rush, but no danger as the enemy left behind had no idea where along this trajectory the Quarians had dropped out of FTL.

It was therefore something of a surprise when an Ethereal scout ship turned up ten light minutes out. It saw them at the exact same moment as they saw it. Since the scout ships could only jump once every hour or so and had a strictly limited range, that meant two things. First, they were in no danger until the ship either closed the range, or jumped away to provide their location to the enemy and they were either horribly unlucky or there was a massive enemy force in the area. Massive enough to search for them.

They still had time to complete their turnaround before the enemy could either close, or escape. It was, therefore, a complete surprise when a battleship turned up less than a light-second from their position and a fusion blast shattered their engines and the rear half of their ship, punching through shields like they weren't even there.

The weapon was so powerful it didn't even shake the ship, vaporizing the frigate's light armor, hull and engines alike, with no difficulty. Most of the ship's power generation was lost, lights died, along with systems as atmosphere escaped the ship until the emergency bulkheads snapped shut, operating on battery back-up.

A burst of noise filled the deck as the crew shouted information about how terribly damaged the ship was. The realization that his ship and crew were dead came as the captain also realized, at last, that this meant that the enemy must have some unknown means of FTL communication. That had been suspected before now, he remembered, a moment too late for it to do any good.

 ** _Codex:_** **_FTL Communications Technology, Unlocked._**

Artificial gravity was gone, but seatbelts held the crew in place and mag boots kicked to life automatically as his bridge crew did their duty and he forced himself to do his.

"Broadcast a report to all rendezvous points and Earth," he commanded the communication's officer as the lights came back on, auxiliary generators were powering emergency systems. Fury and pain screamed in his mind, but he ignored that. "Full sensor sweep as well."

"The battleship is closing," a sensor tech informed him.

The captain closed his eyes for a moment, he remembered the briefing. The battleships were smaller than dreadnoughts, but larger than cruisers. His little frigate wouldn't have stood a chance, even if half of it and probably more than half his crew hadn't been vaporized.

"Half the communications' lasers are gone and half the remainder are fried. I can get maybe two to bear on rendezvous points without navigation and even that's going to be spotty."

"Prioritize location and size information on the enemy forces, then everything else," the captain commanded, then turned to the sensor tech. "Why aren't we dead?"

"Battleship only fired one shot. It's closing at sub-light speeds. It appears to be maneuvering to board us."

"Weapons?"

"Auxiliary power isn't sufficient to power the GARDIAN array. Or the bits of it we still have, sir."

"Marines?"

"Maybe ten left alive. They're arming the surviving crew from the fore armory and taking position around the remaining airlock," his executive officer reported.

The captain took a single, calming breath. "Self-destruct?"

"Gone, sir," his XO reported.

"Time to enemy arrival?"

"Twenty minutes, sir," the sensor tech explained.

A touch to his omni-tool and he was connected to the senior marine officer whose information flashed on his HUD. "Sergeant. Prepare explosives to blow the ship when the battleship docks with us. If you could destroy it as well, that would be good."

"It'll take time sir. We'll have to fabricate most of the explosives and only a few of our people have the necessary programs. We're also short on omni-gel."

"We've got a few thrusters but we'll do what we can to get you the time you need, one way or another. Get moving."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Give us some spin. Make it harder to latch onto us."

"Aye, aye, sir," the pilot agreed, abandoning her efforts at damage control and reaching for the controls to activate her few remaining thrusters.

"We'll lose the line-of-sight for the comm-lasers if we do that," the communications officer interjected.

"Thank you for the reminder. Hold off until they're two minutes out." Two minutes would give even the few working thrusters enough time to build up a spin which would make docking extremely difficult without making it impossible to move around (though it would mean the crew had less time to adapt to the change in motion).

"Aye, aye, sir."

"We're going to need more time, sir," the marine sergeant said, having done the math. "At least fifteen more minutes if we're going to make sure there's nothing left of our tech or databases," she swallowed, "and as little as possible left of our bodies."

"We don't know how they'll handle our spin, but you have absolute priority. Reassign any crew necessary to complete the task."

"Aye, aye, sir."

Minutes passed interminably as the bridge crew thinned out, moving to new locations throughout the ship and the remainder did their best to reroute the remaining power to the two systems they needed to keep active. The captain squirreled away enough power in the battery back-ups to blow the atmosphere out when the enemy bordered. All the crew were wearing suits and while usually those just screened and filtered the atmosphere, they all had a sufficient air-reserve to keep them functional until the ship was scuttled, while the Ethereal's troops did not usually wear any space suits.

"We still need eight minutes," the sergeant informed him as the thrusters flared to life. The captain transferred what functions remained to his omni-tool and those of the remaining officers, then headed towards the airlock after retrieving his pistol from his command chair, where it had remained for the five years since he last drew a weapon in anger.

There'd been two hundred Quarians on his crew. Men and women who he'd known for years, recruited, trained with, lived with and laughed with. Thirty-one survivors filled the corridor around the airlock, hefting the scavenged weapons from the armory. His eyes flickered over them, he knew them all by sight, even with their almost identical suits. He saw the fear and the determination in the lines of their bodies, in their movements, in the hushed conversations from the tiny groups which formed in the halls.

At least they'd left the children behind on the _Rayya_ , as they usually did when going out on patrol. The Liveship had the most excess capacity and her crew would care for the children of those who had fallen. The Fleet would take care of his daughter.

He took his place in the front rank. The suit he wore was the masterwork of the ship's engineers. Their own suits had also been advanced models, modified to have enhanced shields, just as their omni-tools had been improved. Unfortunately, they'd been back with the engines and the best suit in the world couldn't stop a blast from the fusion weaponry of the Ethereal battleship.

As the remnants of the frigate were spinning vertically, rather than horizontally, the enemy ship couldn't simply match their rotation. Instead it ignored the problem and wedged itself into place, tethers shooting out to bind the two ships together so the impact didn't send them flying apart. Fortunately the hull of the frigate held, despite the impact. Mostly.

The Ethereals didn't both with trying to match up their airlock to the Quarians, instead they began cutting their way through the hull from inside their own airlock, after it welded itself into place.

With the internal sensors scrambled it was pure luck that the defenders discovered the location before the X-Rays were inside the ship. The captain took his place in the front line again and waited. The moment they breached, he let the atmosphere blow out of the ship. The first wave of Sectoids suffocated, but that didn't prevent them from firing on the waiting defenders, which was…disturbing.

Blowing atmosphere was such a standard anti-boarding tactic that he'd only ever seen it successfully deployed once, but when there's no atmosphere, people don't shoot at you and maintain their ranks as they suffocate. Even the disciplined panic and try to find an air supply, but not these…creatures. They kept their position, advancing fearlessly and firing even as they suffocated. They were machines, not people. Still, they were machines without the numbers or capability to breach the Quarian lines.

The next wave were Floaters, with their built in breathers. That battle would have been rough, but the marines finally finished placing the charges. The _Kilop_ tore herself apart, along with her crew, shrapnel from her suicide scouring the battleship who'd wounded her, wounding it in turn.

 **XXXXX**

"Admiral, we've received a message from the _Kilop_ , they've located and engaged the enemy."

"Put it through and pass on the information to the staff."

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

 **XXXXX**

"We're detecting major movements in orbit. Almost three hundred of the larger vessels are moving out of the system. This is the unit we have tentatively identified as Heavy Fleet Flotilla One," Bradford reported to the Commander.

"Their heaviest fast response unit…Get Semmi over her—" the Commander began, cutting himself off as the Quarian joined them, his face excited and the ships vanished from their sesnsors.

"One of our patrol ships has found a large group of Ethereal ships. The Heavy Fleet is moving to engage now.

"Numbers?" Bradford asked, so the Commander didn't have to.

"At least twenty, a mixture of troop transports and battleships. There must be more in the area as our patrol ship was ambushed and destroyed. The message took almost two days to reach us, but they won't have gotten too far. With the Patrol Fleet and the Heavy Fleet in the area, they'll be found and destroyed. We've also confirmed that they do have a means of FTL communications which doesn't rely on comms bouys and relays, which is going to make things trickier."

"Does it endanger your assault?'

"We will take appropriate countermeasures, it'll make things trickier, but with three hundred ships, we'll crush this attack."

"And Earth?" the Commander asked.

"The Civilian Fleet and a few other elements of the Heavy Fleet are here. No one would be stupid enough to attack a system with more than forty-five _thousand_ armed ships. And if anyone was that stupid, they wouldn't survive their own childhood, let alone the attack on this system," Semmi said scornfully.

In accordance with the nature of the universe and its perverse sense of humor, alarms began to ring throughout the base and everyone turned to the monitors, except Semmi who turned to his omni-tool, which was also beeping alarms.

It was only a scout ship and it vanished a moment after arrival, torn apart by the GARDIAN systems of a quartet of modified transport craft.

"See, what did I tell you?" Semmi said, when the alarms started going off again.

Bradford and Semmi cursed. The rest of the staff in the room stared at the monitors. The Commander blinked, then began snapping orders.

 **XXXXX**

"Well, that's big," Vahlen said to Shen from where they were following along in her lab.

"Yes. It is…" Shen agreed breathlessly.

 **XXXXX**

When it appeared, it was outside the range of any of the Quarian ships' GARDIAN systems, but there were twenty Quarian vessels easily within range of the massive ship's fusion weaponry. Thirty seconds after arriving, there were eighteen clouds of shattered steel and dissipating atmosphere and the engine wake of the two ships which managed to escape within range of its primary weapons. Few Quarian ships were in position to fire on the new arrival and even fewer in position to do so without risking misses impacting the planet.

Obedient to Admiral Pol'Vega's standing orders, only those who were in such position fired. That consisted of a handful of converted cargo transports with externally mounted mass effect turrets and a single frigate analogue. The turrets were intended to keep away a shuttle boarding party, or prevent a group of fighters from crippling the ships long enough for them to escape, nothing more. The frigate's main gun was reasonably powerful, for a hundred year old frigate. The impact of both sets of rounds had no effect on the ship, which hung above London like the sword of Damocles.

Ships scattered, then began to move together like a flock of birds as those who were panicking remembered emergency plans, or were reminded by central command. They began to move into a half-sphere, around the monstrous craft, broken by the planet so that no missed shots could hit the garden world. They'd be more risk to one another, but that was a problem for once the battle began. The Liveships were moving into place as well, providing three artillery platforms as strong points and anchors of the battle line, as each was protected by the heaviest remaining vessels.

A single frigate vanished, running after the Heavy Fleet to inform them. For the moment, from the _Levshepa_ , Admiral Pol'Vega examined the enemy.

The ship outmassed all three of the Liveships put together. Almost three miles end-to-end, it was shaped like a drop of water, escaped into zero-gee, then pulled towards the right, with smooth metal projections dipping from the bottom, a metal rim around its top deck and the entire body was studded with heavy weapons. If it had a mass effect cannon, it would have been able to shatter even the _Destiny Ascension_ at any range, but its fusion weaponry was just as powerful, if shorter ranged. Its armor was clearly superior to that of any ship they'd encountered thus far.

The battle would be ugly, but at least it would be straightforward. No more politicking, or talking, just an enemy to kill—

"New Ones. You stray from the path. You cripple your advancement with allies and foreign technology. This will cease. Or you will… _cease._ Or they will… _cease_. This is the choice we offer you. The only choice."

" _Bosh'tet!_ "

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Supply Shortages During the Ethereal War:_**

 _In the initial days of the Ethereal War, there were a number of localized shortages of basic materials, including food, fuel and steel. This wasn't due to any actual shortage of material on the planet, but a combination of local hoarding and disruption of transportation networks. The Council, local governments and the UN managed to solve that problem with a combination of public appeals, money and threats. The latter mostly came from the Council._

 _Fortunately, the Migrant Fleet arrived before the Quarians of the scout flotilla ran out of dextro-compatible food, though that was only true because of the heavy casualties amongst the Quarians and the fact that most of the_ Hatak's _food stores survived, despite the cruiser being flung into the planet._

 _The real shortages were in those materials which were being recovered from the aliens, whether Ethereal, or Quarian. Alien Alloys, Meld, Elerium and Element Zero couldn't be produced so easily and were crucial to the constructions of the more modern weapons needed to effectively resist the invaders. The Quarians tried to assist, but their own supplies of Element Zero were strictly limited. After Dhaka, there were massive supplies of alien materials on Earth, but getting them wasn't easy at all, especially with Element Zero contamination throughout the area._

 _This left many nations with effectively no effective independent defense force, reliant upon X-Com. This, along with the damage done by, apparently random, Ethereal raids and attacks destabilized many nations and worsened the supply crisis as trade routes closed, while people and nations alike panicked and resumed hoarding._

 ** _Codex:_** **_FTL_** **_Communications Technology:_**

 _There are three means of FTL communication, each with advantages and disadvantages. The first and most common is a network of laser-communication buoys, daisy-chained from a mass relay to a planet or station. Its main advantages are its stability, straightforwardness and ability to connect to anywhere on the same network. Its disadvantages are the high cost of installation, especially for duplicate systems, relatively low carrying capacity, the complexity of the centralized control systems necessary to make it function and its vulnerability to attack._

 _The second most common is the use of a courier ship. Its advantages include being difficult to attack/track, high individual capacity and ability to go places where no buoys have been sent up. The disadvantages include the potential for the crew to take off with your message, the time it takes to get to more distant locations, the potential for interception and the inability to engage in real time communication, or respond to the message in a timely fashion._

 _The third and rarest is psionic communications. Its advantages are that it doesn't require any infrastructure, just a psionic in a Gollop Chamber at both ends and it does permit real time, two-way communication. Its disadvantages are that communicating through the living brains of two psionics is not a clear way to communicate, it requires you to already have a psionic in place at your destination and it requires you to have access to two unusually powerful psionics and two extremely expensive Gollop Chambers._

 **Author's Note: Okay, sorry about this, but I'm going to be travelling for the next two weeks for work and won't have an opportunity to update. I'll be back and update on the 28th of July with the next chapter.**

 **Comments/reviews are always welcome.**


	6. Ch 6: The Unknown Consequences of Choice

**Chapter 6: The Unknown Consequences of Choice**

 **Author's Note: I'm back! Thank you, thank you, I survived my trip. And, it turns out if you deny me access to most of my usual distractions, but let me keep a word processor, then I can write thirty thousand words in two weeks. Productivity! Woohoo!**

 **And now, responses to reviews:**

 **1) Why not just use shuttles with nukes on board to destroy Ethereal ships? I'm not sure which engagement is being referred to here, but there's a couple of reasons. Before the arrival of the Fleet, it was because they didn't have the shuttles to spare and most engagements are taking place in atmosphere (and the scout flotilla doesn't actually carry any nukes and asking Humanity for them seemed…unpolitic). For the engagements in chapter 5, the scout frigate didn't have any shuttles and was ambushed; the Heavy Fleet needs to find the enemy and the Temple Ship absolutely surprised the Civilian Fleet. More generally, they don't do this because it doesn't have any real advantage over a fighter or missile attack which won't get through the enemy's point defense (probably, or so the Quarians believe. You may have noticed they're having some trouble adapting to the new circumstances and technology (an unfortunate side effect of the generally pretty stable technology of the Mass Effect 'verse)).**

 **Without FTL communications, there's no easy way to coordinate a shuttle attack from outside the line-of-sight of the party being attacked and the shuttle needs to build up speed before it can jump to FTL, giving the target plenty of time to see it coming and move. I may not be doing a great job of describing it, but that's part of what makes space battles so very hard, everyone is moving unpredictably and the distances are, usually, vast, though the Ethereals have get in pretty close in order to target their enemy. It's a clash of technologies which tends to mean that whichever of them can force the other into their preferred mode of engagement will win.**

 **Well, unless there's some sort of…game changer out there. Like some sort of massive alien ship, armed to the gills and stuffed with Ethereals and their soldier-slaves…**

 **Or something.**

 **2) Various anticipatory comments: Thanks! Reviews are wonderful things.**

 **And now, your regularly scheduled chapter:**

"You heard the man. Fire," Admiral Vega commanded. The converted transports sent up a hail of tiny shots from their turrets, frigates fired their main guns, sending up a cloud of shot, while frigates and cruisers fired larger rounds and each of the Liveships sent a single round towards the stationary target.

Fire burst from the fusion weapons which filled the ship's lower decks while the mass effect rounds were still approaching.

London vanished.

The ship vanished.

Thousands of rounds passed through newly empty space.

"How'd they do that? They can only jump once per period. It was only a few min—" one of the officers began to ask.

"Where the hell is it?" Admiral Vega snapped, overriding him.

"Other side of the planet ma'am, above a city called," the scanner tech's voice shifted somewhat as she tried to mimic the Human pronunciation, "Tokyo?"

"We're switching to wide coverage dispersal. No one fires without my order," she didn't know if failing to attack would prevent the enemy from destroying a second Human city, but she wasn't going to trigger another massacre until and unless she absolutely had to.

"Aye, aye, ma'am," the comms tech said, transmitting the order.

"And figure out why that ship isn't playing by the same rules as the rest of the enemy fleet!" she added to one of her senior staff techs.

"Aye, aye, ma'am."

The Civilian Fleet scattered, moving to cover the full scope of the atmosphere with the Liveships. That required pulling the giant vessels back, to each cover a third of the planet. Fortunately the enemy stayed in a high enough orbit that the curve of the planet didn't make this impossible.

"Ma'am," the staff tech said, drawing the Admiral's attention.

"Yes?"

A voice came from the tech's omni-tool, "Admiral, it's brilliant! There was no way we could have figured it out from the readings we had, but—"

"Tech," the admiral interrupted the blithering genius her tech had consulted with.

"Ma'am, they've got backup engines capable of small jumps. We estimate they can jump like that five more times."

"Five more times. That's all?"

"That's not all! See, their FTL generates a field which folds space and brings them to their destination. That field contaminates other engines within the field, until the contamination dissipates, they can't be used. Which is why they can't just have multiple engines. The field should scale with the ship and the distance and it does, but not entirely perfectly. At the size of that ship, there's places where, if the generator was placed on the prow of the ship, then certain of those metal projections would be far enough away not to be contaminated. Those smaller drives can only move the ship a tiny relative distance, but it's more than enough for maneuvers like that," the scientist explained, not aware that the tech had muted her transition.

"Based on the power spike and radiation surge we saw when they jumped, yes, we believe so, ma'am."

"The locations of these engines are identified?"

"We believe so. We've calculated optimum position which would let them fit in six backup engines. Any other position and they can only fit a maximum of five. It fits with the one jump we've recorded."

"Any way to stop them from jumping besides blowing up their individual drives?"

"Well…let me talk to some people."

"You've got thirty minutes until we're in position and have to decide whether we're firing again. I'd like another option."

"Yes, ma'am," the tech said to Admiral Vega's back as the admiral was already demanding a channel to the Commander from the comms tech.

 **XXXXX**

"Six more cities? Casualty estimates are barely beginning to come in from London, but we're looking at _millions_ dead," Central Officer Bradford snapped.

"Six more cities will not destroy Humanity. If that's the only option, then we will deal with it. I would prefer another option however, if you have one," the Commander said, voice level.

"Then you wish to continue?" Admiral Vega asked, through Semmi's omni-tool.

"Yes."

"Understood. I assume your own forces are mobilizing?"

"Of course," the Commander responded.

"For what good it will do," Bradford muttered. "They're down here, we can't get them up to that monstrosity. But we'll have troops ready to go wherever it crashes."

Dr. Shen stared at him. "If it crashes, there won't be anything but a crater for a hundred kilometers, at least if it doesn't land in the ocean, which is actually the worse scenario as it involves massive tsunamis all along every shoreline."

"Continue the mobilization," the Commander ordered into the silence that followed the doctor's announcement.

 **XXXXX**

"Five more jumps is more than enough to destroy every Liveship in the Fleet and as many Human cities. I need a way to pin that bosh'tet down," the tech demanded of his omni-tool.

"We're scientists, not miracle workers," one voice argued.

Another was suggesting some sort of particle emission that would contaminate the other drives, but since that suggestion started with 'assuming we had a particle generator capable of creating and aiming such particles' he ignored that.

"Well, gravity distorts space. The larger the ship, the further out from a gravity well it has to come out to make its jump. Knock it into the atmosphere and it won't be able to jump around," one voice pointed out.

The others immediately jumped in to point out the damage to the planet in that case, as well as the fact that if they could hit it to knock it into the atmosphere, then they wouldn't have to knock it into the atmosphere, because they'd be able to hit it.

"How large a gravity well?" Admiral Vega asked from her command chair, still examining her slowly redeploying fleet.

"Depends how close it is."

"A gravity well the size of a cruiser?" the Admiral asked.

There was a pause while the scientist plugged that into his model. "Doesn't have the mass, even if its hull-to-hull with that ship."

"Even if it uses its core to increase its mass as much as possible?"

There was a longer pause. "A cruiser could hold it, under those circumstances, but only if it runs so hot that its power system would burn out in less than a minute."

"And the _Levsheppa_?" Admiral Vega asked.

There was a moment of absolute silence, not merely on the other end of the communication line, but in the bridge as well as crew froze at the suggestion she was making. Protecting the Liveships was core doctrine. Endangering them was unthinkable.

"At a power level which could be maintained for a reasonable period of time, the _Levsheppa_ would need to be within a kilometer of the enemy ship," the scientist said after more time than it should have taken to run the numbers. "Which is _well within the range of the enemy weapons._ "

"Thank you."

"Deploying multiple cruisers could have the same effect in a more reasonable fashion, I'll forward plans to your omni-tool, Admiral?"

"Thank you," the admiral repeated, but her eyes were not on the information the scientist streamed to her.

The captain of the _Levsheppa_ approached her as she manipulated potential fleet maneuvers on her omni-tool, exploring various possibilities. He stood before her for a moment, then, when she didn't look up, came sharply at attention before her, boot coming down loud on the deck. "Yes, Captain?" she asked, without looking up.

"Ma'am, I can't help but notice that you appear to be looking into using my ship as some sort of primitive battering ram."

"I wouldn't put it that way. More like a primitive boarding pod," she corrected him.

"Ma'am, putting aside everything else which is wrong with that, this ship is full of civilians unloaded from the Heavy Fleet. Remember? Oh, and that ship outmasses us many times over. Who knows how many soldiers are onboard it? Surely more than the thousand marines on the _Levsheppa_. There was something else, what was it?" The admiral opened her mouth, but the captain spoke right over her. "Oh, right, and this is a Liveship of the Fleet, one of the last three reserves of life from Rannoch. It contains irreplaceable animal, insect and plant life. If we lose this ship, our chances of ever repairing Rannoch drop to almost none, oh and we'll have real trouble feeding the Fleet. This action risks the entirety of the Fleet. You cannot—"

"I can, _Captain_. And I will, unless you and the rest of the staff can give me an alternate solution to this problem. You have until we're in position, Captain."

"The Conclave will not permit—"

"The Conclave voted. We are allies with the Humans. We do _not_ abandon our allies, unlike the Council."

 ** _Codex: The Betrayal, Unlocked._**

"Failing to commit suicide is not abandoning our allies."

Admiral Vega examined the massive ship which awaited the next response of the Humans, then flicked a hand and the projection shifted to where London had once stood. Stone and metal buildings had melted to form lumps on the exposed bedrock, but the fusion and plasma weaponry had left almost nothing behind. "Shall we leave them to die alone?"

"Is it better that two species die than one?"

"Your defeatism betrays you, Captain. It is better that five species die here than two. And that is what will happen. If there are more of these monstrous ships wherever they come from, then capturing this one can only be good. If not, then we will use their own ship to burn their worlds to ash. We are the Migrant Fleet and we will never run again."

 **XXXXX**

"Do we have a plan?" the Spokesman asked.

"We wait," the Commander answered.

"There's nothing else we can do?" the Spokesman's voice was incredulous.

"There's nothing else to be done at this time. That ship dodged the Quarian shots which are a lot faster than any of our missiles. Assuming some nuclear missiles could take it out, we couldn't hit the target. And that assumes they dodge, instead of blowing them out of the sky and spreading radioactive material over the planet. If that thing lands we'll take it out, but so long as it stays in orbit, we'll have to leave it to the Quarians."

"And what are they doing?"

"I have no idea. What little our remaining satellites can pick up indicate that thousands of ships are moving around in all different directions." The enemy ship was picking off every satellite that came within fifty kilometers of it, doing massive damage to telecommunications and observation capacity.

"Are the Quarians withdrawing?"

"They will do what they will do. And they aren't talking much at the moment."

"Do we know why not?"

"They may be concerned about communication interception, or they may be ashamed that they're going to run. I don't know."

"And if they're running?"

"Then it depends on what the enemy does. There are things we can try, but if they're able to continue to dodge and their point defense is as good as appears likely, then we will probably be forced to surrender."

"That is unacceptable."

"I did not say we would mean it when we surrender."

"And how is a fake surrender different from a real one?"

"If we can bait them into landing? Then it's very different. If not, then it's not different at all."

"Unacceptable," the Spokesman repeated, as if that changed anything.

"But it may be necessary. We will try many things beforehand, but I doubt their success. I do not say that we're doomed, yet, but if they're truly willing to exterminate us from orbit and we can't touch that ship, then, unacceptable or not, we'll surrender. The real question is how far are we willing to go to make them prove that they are truly willing to exterminate us?"

 **XXXXX**

"This plan will work. They can't detect our shots, once they're fired. They'll see the spike, but won't know where they're aimed. There's only so many big cities on the planet and that ship's a damn big target. We can put cruiser weight shots through the space over all of them, make a grid. We'll get a piece of them! Odds are better than ninety percent," the captain of the _Levsheppa_ argued.

"That you'll get a piece of them, sure. That a single shot from a cruiser's main gun will take out a ship that big?" countered one of the admiral's staffers. "I don't think so. You saw what happened when it took a hit from a frigate."

"We need to pin it down and pound on it. We can't do that if it's jumping around like magic and we can't do that with a bunch of cruisers which'll get cut to bits before they can even get close," another staffer agreed, arguing more with himself than anyone at the table.

"But to endanger a Liveship…" a third muttered. "It goes against policy, doctrine and common sense."

"And standing orders!" the captain put in sharply.

"The admiral's standing orders. She can overrule them if she wishes."

"Besides, with that ship able to jump anywhere it wants within, what, some unknown distance? The Liveships are in danger so long as they remain in this system."

"The Heavy Fleet will be back—"

"Not that soon. And it doesn't contain any dreadnoughts anyway. What matters here is size. Armor and shielding won't stop those weapons. We need a ship that can take a hit and still anchor itself in place."

"Which is why a swarm of cruisers and cargo transports are the right way to go!"

"Except those ships will get in each others way and be destroyed or defeated individually. The Liveship gives us a single battlefield, where we're on the defensive."

The staff meeting devolved into bickering for a long minute until Pol's chief of staff slammed an armored fist down on the table. "I'll present all options to the Admiral, but only if they're presented to me, clearly. I want proposals on my omni-tool within fifteen minutes. Enough discussion. It's time to decide."

"Whether we're all going to commit suicide for a bunch of aliens," one of the staffers muttered under her breath, but audibly.

"Whether we're going to betray our allies, as the Council betrayed us," another muttered in response.

"ENOUGH!" the chief of staff shouted, waving them out of the briefing room with a furious gesture.

 **XXXXX**

"Engage."

Ships moved. By the thousands they moved, engines burning as they began to build up speed towards the jump that could take them to FTL and out of the system. And in the center of it all, sat Admiral Pol'Vega Vas'Levsheppa and the Migrant Fleet danced at her command.

 **XXXXX**

"The aliens are attacking!" Bradford yelled, staring at the massive display.

Semmi glared at him. "The Fleet is moving," he corrected the younger man.

"Directly towards the enemy!" Bradford snapped.

"They have to build up speed before they jump to FTL and they're hardly likely to turn their back on this enemy. Which is why the enemy hasn't moved yet," Semmi said and the others almost missed his sotto voce concluding comment, 'I hope…'

"Continue mobilization," the Commander ordered, as if nothing was happening, because he recognized there was nothing he could do about anything going on outside the atmosphere.

 **XXXXX**

The _Levsheppa_ leapt to FTL, firing her top thrusters at the last possible moment before making the jump. Those thrusters flipped the ship over while invisibly in FTL, putting the _Levsheppa_ in position to instantly began to decelerate and increase its mass, when it dropped out of FTL almost atop, in both senses of the word, the massive enemy ship, engines burning hard to slow her before she plowed into the top of it (originally the _Levsheppa_ would have flown over the enemy ship, but the same thruster movements which had flipped the _Levsheppa_ over to let her slow herself with her main engines had aimed the Liveship down into the enemy ship).

In the moment before the ships collided, the _Levsheppa's_ mass rose exponentially and the enemy ship managed to land a single shot from one of the fusion weapons that dotted its hull on the charging Quarian ship. The remaining half-dozen fusion weapons which could bear on the _Levsheppa_ missed due to its sudden arrival and squirming, shifting trajectory and mass.

Fortunately, the blast came in at an angle and impacted the exhaust from the massive engines before hitting the rear of the craft. The exhaust absorbed some of the energy of the weapon and the increased mass helped protect the ship, but the fusion weapon still slagged one of the engines, causing the _Levsheppa's_ arrival to be somewhat more…energetic than anticipated.

The increased mass of the _Levsheppa_ and the shielding which they had pulled back to reinforce the hull against the impact (as it was thoroughly useless against the fusion weaponry of the enemy ship) was sufficient that the _Levsheppa_ survived the maneuver intact (except for the destroyed engine) and the enemy ship's mass and massive armor let it survive as well, though the exhaust of the remaining engines did burn deep gouges in the hull before the ceased firing. The _Levsheppa_ settled atop the ship, pressed hull to hull, too close for any of the recessed, non- _Levsheppa-_ covered, weapons to bear upon it.

One of the covered weapons tried to fire, but with the _Levsheppa's_ hull pressed against the opening, the weapon didn't have the necessary room to build up a charge and discharge, instead exploding messily, taking a divot out of the hulls of both ships and depressurizing large sections of them. Escape pods burst from the top of the _Levsheppa_ as children and civilians made the escape which the Ethereal's observation and the Admiral's paranoia had denied them earlier.

At the same moment, half a dozen armed shuttles and fighters burst from the one still functional shuttle bay on the _Levsheppa's_ starboard side (the port side one having been converted to living quarters thirty years ago) and began to fire on the enemy ship's weapon emplacements from inside its own defensive perimeter. As many more small ships detached from the airlocks they'd been clamped to and joined the fray. The ships hugged the hull as they killed ship-killing weapons with pinpoint, short-range fire. Despite their accuracy and the range, it took sustained barrages of fire from the smaller ships to disable those weapons.

Point-defense turrets rose belatedly from hidden locations and began to fire on the craft as the _Levsheppa_ ' _s_ shields expanded in response. The shields of the smaller craft were much weaker, but they could dodge back inside the _Levsheppa's_ shields whenever their own shields needed to recharge and the craft were far more nimble than any of the Ethereal's craft. The giant ship's defenses weren't designed to handle such maneuverable manned craft inside the main defensive perimeter. Picking off unshielded missiles was one thing, fighters skimming their own ship's hull were quite another.

Marines and engineers dropped onto the hull at the same moment as shuttles were launching from the crashed Liveship. They were carrying long cables and tethers, binding the two ships together, long before the Ethereals could move any forces into the area, especially with so many of those forces dying in the decompression caused by their own futile attempts to kill the _Levsheppa_.

Hidden bays swung open all over the massive enemy vessel and scout craft poured out. Those which had been within the range of the jump-engine-contaminating original jump began to dogfight with the attacking fighters and shuttle craft, using the point-defense turrets the same way the Quarian ships used the Levsheppa's shields and GARDIAN systems.

The few shuttles launching from the rear of the craft, where they'd been outside the range of the contamination, jumped to nearby cities and began trying to spread panic and draw attention away from their mothership. With every major power around the globe basing Firestorms out of their airfields, that was a short-lived and relatively futile attack. However, it did succeed at spreading panic and delaying the Firestorms from joining the attack on the main ship.

More Quarian vessels dropped out around the restrained enemy ship, carefully dropping out of FTL far outside the range of its weaponry and launched shuttles full of marines. The assault craft swung around so they were approaching from where the bulk of the _Levsheppa_ shielded them from the enemy's weapons and they began to board the _Levsheppa_ from the same areas where the civilians had fled the crippled Liveship as well as from where the, now-dueling, strike craft had launched from.

It could not be, would not be, and was not long before the Ethereals began to respond more effectively. Floaters and suited Muton warriors began to pour into the area and onto the hull where marines instantly switched from attempting to secure airlocks and mine any remaining weapon emplacements to defending the tethers which bound the two ships together. The increase in mass, careful firing of the _Levsheppa's_ thrusters and the enemy ship's own forward orbital momentum had held the ships together for the critical instant to permit them to be tethered together, but if the tethers were cut and the enemy sublight engines fired, then it might still get away (though that would mean exposing itself to the full fire of the Fleet until it reached a safe distance to jump, unshielded by the Liveship's presence).

Thanks to the artificial gravity, none of the Ethereals noticed that the _Levsheppa_ 's thrusters were rolling them until one of them sadly (and belatedly) ordered the destruction of Tokyo as punishment for this gambit. The discovery that they were upside down and therefore the vast majority of the weaponry not blocked by the Levsheppa was pointed at empty space was somewhat disconcerting to people for whom spacecraft were merely a means to reach new planets and new subjects. It was likewise disconcerting to the marines and engineers on the hull of the ships, but they shrugged and got back to work, trusting in their mag boots to keep them from falling. A trust which was mostly rewarded, though several discovered that a planetary gravity well was far less forgiving of mag boot faults than a vacuum, where someone else could just come get you if there were problems.

A few shots from the weaponry which wasn't covered by the bulk of the _Levsheppa_ or disabled either by the marines or the, still-raiding, shuttlecraft and fighters did some damage, but the ships had mostly drifted (not at all accidentally, and at a very high rate of speed) away from Tokyo, out towards the ocean and were still doing so, carrying them away from anything obvious that might be damaged by their fire (the consequences of vaporizing a large amount of the ocean might have been bad, but did not occur to the Ethereals).

Though the mile long Liveship couldn't cover the entirety of the three mile long Ethereal vessel, it covered most of what had been the top, fore section and was now the bottom fore section, leaving the (now) bottom aft weapons free (which could aim only at water) and the top (formerly bottom) weapons free, which were mostly intended for planetary bombardment and now could aim only up. Though the ship's weapons were mostly useless, the same could not be said for the rest of its systems, as the Ethereals eventually realized.

The enemy ship's engines leapt to life as the two vessels began to struggle for control. The _Levsheppa_ was a Liveship, almost a kilometer long, with engines built to let her outrun raiders and Geth alike, but the enemy ship was three times the length and many more times the mass, even if it was mostly intended to use its jump drive, its sublight drive was still more than a match for the _Levsheppa's_ (and would have been even if one of the _Levsheppa's_ main drives wasn't melted scrap metal). Once it overcame the momentum the _Levsheppa_ and gravity were imbuing, it would be able to push the smaller craft around, indeed, it was already angling things to attempt to burn the smaller ship off as they approached the atmosphere.

It was, therefore, something of a surprise to them when Admiral Vega's handpicked team of infiltrators and engineers finally reached the main engines after a long run across the outside of the enemy vessel's hull and began blowing the crap out of them. They didn't have time for finesse, so they just packed everything within reach with explosives and detonated them. Unfortunately, the four main engines were each…large and separated by several hundred meters of open hull. Even more unfortunately, they were being maintained by a cluster of Drones and Cyberdiscs, which called for aid the moment they were attacked.

None of the 139 marines, or 84 non-marine engineers the Admiral had dispatched would return, but they accomplished their mission and the engines were destroyed.

With the enemy ship helpless and over the ocean, the _Levsheppa_ rolled again and called for aid herself, to keep from plunging to a fiery death as she descended into the atmosphere. Dozens of Quarian vessels answered the call, tethering themselves to the back of the _Levsheppa_ and keeping her aloft, but there wasn't room for enough craft to lift them out of the atmosphere, not with the enemy ship merrily destroying any craft which slipped into its line of fire.

Not that they would have lifted it out of the atmosphere even if they could.

 **XXXXX**

"I don't fucking care. Get every goddamn Skyranger loaded up and up there. We aren't leaving this fight up to the fucking aliens. We will decide our own fate if I have to fire your ass up there out of a fucking artillery piece!" Bradford's bellow was emphatic to the point of being almost unbearably loud.

"Contact the Fleet and get flight paths which keep our craft clear of enemy fire," the Commander added calmly.

"Shuttles are inbound from the _Levsheppa,_ Commander, they're requesting additional troops to ferry up there," Semmi said.

"Cleared. Empty the barracks. Once all our people are topside, we'll have them ferry troops from the nearest military bases. I assume the Americans, Russians, Japanese, Chinese, Canadians, Mexicans and Australians are all cooperating?" the Commander asked a nearby tech.

"Yes, sir, everyone's seen the pictures of London, they don't want that ship loose any more than we do," the tech responded.

"Get those goddamn Firestorms moving as well. Coordinate with the Quarians, I want those fucking city-killers melted off that damn ship!" Bradford yelled at another tech, abandoning the, insufficiently furious, Commander and Semmi to their nonsense.

"Agreed," the Commander said the Bradford, then turned back to Semmi, "I understand why the Admiral did not communicate with me beforehand, but we need to coordinate now, or we risk tripping over each other."

Semmi looked up from his omni-tool, now streaming in updates. "Admiral Pol'Vega is dead. She died in the initial crash. Everyone's following her last orders with some direction from Captain Tion'Elor vas'Levsheppa, but it's going to be chaos up there. The Admirals of the Heavy and Patrol Fleets are still out there hunting the rest of the enemy and the Admiral of Special Projects is still studying the one Quarian who has shown psionic powers and hasn't bothered to answer any messages in four days, let alone leave his lab. There's no clear chain of command at the moment."

"Can you take charge?" the Commander asked Semmi. The Quarian looked like someone had gutted him. He wanted it, more than he'd ever suspected, he wanted to be an admiral, to save and serve his people. A heavy sigh escaped grey lips.

"No. My skills aren't those which are needed. Even Pol's skills aren't what's needed now. Tion can handle the limited remaining naval side of this engagements. It's not hard, it's just going to take a while to clear out the enemy point-defense and heavy weapons one by one. The hard part is the boarding action. There's probably millions of X-Rays on that ship, and a Liveship has a garrison of a thousand. Thousands more were dropped off by those shuttles and more are inbound. However…we haven't fought a large scale ground engagement since the end of the Geth Wars. This needs a different," Semmi winced, " _commander_."

He stepped forward and activated his omni-tool and took over the central screen in Mission Control. Usually it displayed the planet, except when satellite imagery was letting the Commander aid and guide a team in the field. At Semmi's command, that was replaced with an outline of the enemy ship and the corridors the Quarians had mapped, dotted with markers indicating Quarian troop strength and where they'd located the enemy. He stripped off the omni-tool from his wrist for the first time in almost three decades and passed it to the Commander. "The teams are labelled, just speak their name and they'll hear you, broadcasting with my authority as representative of the Conclave. I hope the enemy can't tap that communication, but I can't promise it."

"And the Human soldiers?" Bradford asked like a good XO, while the Commander was busy absorbing the tactical situation.

"If they're within sight of Quarians the VI should ID them, but if they're on their own, you'll need another way of tracking them."

"Merging all those command-and-control systems won't be easy," Bradford muttered.

"We won't bother. We'll use Quarians as messengers and CNC. Make sure we get copies of all the relevant radio frequencies as they go up, so we can still communicate if the Quarians go down," the Commander said, then spoke a series of seventeen orders without pause which brought the Quarian forces into a ragged line just inside the decompression zone and sent a group of civilian engineers to work on patching the atmosphere.

"I've sent updated translation packages to the marines' omni-tools, but we still haven't finished programs for all Human languages, remember," Semmi added.

"I do, I do. Now then," the Commander rubbed his hands together, "let's get to work."

 **XXXXX**

The battle became one of attrition, ugly and grinding with massive casualties on both sides, but the balance was tilted in the favor of the attackers as more and more soldiers shuttled up from the planet, or over from the Migrant Fleet, but the X-Rays received no reinforcements. Though the massive assault ship did manage to destroy a number of Migrant Fleet vessels, there was always a replacement. The same could not be said for each weapon emplacement which was destroyed by fighter fire, or infiltrators. The few fighters and armed shuttlecraft which were destroyed were replaced with Firestorms.

Though the Human fighter craft was extremely effective in atmosphere, the Quarians couldn't rearm, reequip, or refuel them and both ships remained tethered together over the ocean, leaving many Firestorms with time for only a single brief attack run before they had to continue on to the nearest airfield. This problem gradually resolved itself as X-Com claimed Henderson Field (formerly the Naval Air Facility on Midway Island) and brought fuel, weapons, batteries and everything else needed to do maintenance and repair on Firestorms to the, mostly decommissioned, air station. Along with Japan, Hawaii and Alaska, Midway and a dozen other World War II era decommissioned bases were used as staging points for the largest air assault ever launched by Humanity.

Faced with such a determined (and massive) assault, the Ethereals had to resort to venting parts of their own ship to defend themselves. Most of the Human soldiers had been given masks and oxygen supplies sufficient to let them get to the next section, and the Ethereals lack of locks crippled their ability to defend themselves properly, but many still died, or suffered horrible decompression injuries.

Obedient to the Commander's orders, the soldiers spread like coral throughout the ship, seizing key corridors and sabotaging systems. As they cleared out anti-ship weapons, more shuttles were able to dock with Ethereal airlocks and bring troops in right near the front lines, each shuttle bringing a squad or two of soldiers, which wasn't much individually, but as an endless stream, they acted as a moat, holding against the enemy, even if they spent lives like water to do it.

And then there was X-Com and a few elite units of Quarian marines, kept together as assault groups. They smashed enemy resistance and advanced so quickly that a few had to be recalled to keep them from getting cut off and floating through the rest of the ship like an embolism floating in a Human body.

There were hundreds of thousands of soldiers engaged and millions more ready to take ship when the Commander spotted something that he thought might give them a chance at ending the battle without finishing the ugly slugging match. He selected his troops with care from those who were in, or near, the right position and gave the order. To lots of them. He wasn't rolling the dice on one long shot, not with entire armies at his command.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: The Betrayal:_**

 _When the Geth Wars began, the Quarians initially demanded that all other powers stay out of their internal strife. Their concern at the time was making sure none of the other powers took advantage of their instability and that none of the border colonies either made a break for independence, or sought to join another power._

 _As the wars dragged on, this changed to politely, then desperately requesting aid from outside powers. These requests were denied. As the wars slowly ended with the collapse of Quarian populations due to starvation and the brutally efficient strategies of the Geth, the remaining Quarian government begged for aid. And were denied. The final call came as the Migrant Fleet was launching, begging for Council protection as they fled. The Council did not respond._

 _The reasons for the Council's noninvolvement and the failure of any the member nations to intervene are not entirely clear, though presumably they were convincing, as both the Quarian casualties and the economic damage were horrific and all of Quarian space, the population and resources therein, was lost to the Council. The economic damage is believed to have caused what is widely known as the Quarian recession, damaging the galactic economy for almost a decade thereafter._

 _There are many theories for why no assistance was forthcoming, from jealousy over Quarian success in the field of AI, to Geth blackmail of the Council and leadership of every individual nation. But to the Quarians, the reasons, actual or conspiratorial, hardly matter. They lost their worlds, their ancestors, almost everything and everyone, while those they considered allies did not help. The failure to do so is known as the Betrayal._

 **Author's Note: This and the next chapter should really be one chapter, but that proved to be way too large.**

 **Also, though there's five admirals on the admiralty board, I'm not sure what the fifth admiral is in charge of and therefore left them out of my count. The other four are in charge of the Civilian, Heavy, Patrol Fleets and Special Projects, respectively. In my head, I'm handling this by calling it an innovation of the intervening almost two centuries between the two time periods.**

 **Reviews are always welcome.**


	7. Ch 7: The Known Consequences of Choice

**Chapter 7: The Known Consequences of Choice**

 **Author's Note: Work exploded on me, so this chapter got less review than usual. If you spot typos, or other errors, please let me know and I'll fix them up. In other news, this story now has more than a hundred favorites and more than a hundred and seventy-five follows. That's pretty awesome, especially given that I haven't generally shown any fiction I wrote to anyone who wasn't in my immediate family.**

 **I should also point out that some of the dialogue here is from, or adapted from the X-Com Temple mission. I don't own X-Com, alas, any more than I own Mass Effect.**

 **Review Responses: Thank you to everyone who reviewed to comment on how they anticipated this chapter or enjoyed the last chapter.**

 **There was one comment that the fifth admiral was in overall command of the Migrant Fleet when the Fleet needed to act as a single unit. That's a good explanation, though I don't recall it from canon. I think it's probably correct. But, since we don't have any relevant history, the explanation for that admiral's absence in this story is that the Migrant Fleet's government evolved in the intervening hundred and seventy five years between X-Com and Mass Effect 1, adding this fifth admiral.**

 **There was also a lengthy and very helpful review by Qinlongfei which raised some excellent points, which I responded to with a PM, as otherwise it would have eaten too much of the chapter. Thanks Qinlongfei!**

"No one invited you on this jaunt, General," Colonel Wallace 'Nuke' Reilly snapped. The massive X-Com officer hefted the heavy plasma weapon one-handed as the rest of his squad advanced into cover down the hallway, covering the handful of Quarian engineers and the two Humans whose eyes didn't ever focus on you when they were talking to you. Of course, their eyes didn't quite focus on anything anymore. Unlike the X-Com squad in their top-of-the-line gear, who were focused on everyone.

It was impossible to tell where on that spectrum the squad of Quarian marines escorting them fell as they still wore the full, face-concealing, helmets of their ilk, but they probably were keeping an eye on the twitchy man and the equally twitchy woman, more to ensure they didn't interfere with the engineers who were their main focus than out of any concern regarding what might happen to the psionics.

"I invited myself, just like everyone else on that Skyranger, _Colonel_. In response to _your_ Commander's _request_ for support," General Peter Van Doorn snapped right back at him. The body armor he was wearing was very definitely not standard issue, but was rather a gift from Yofi and the other lab geeks and was heavily modified experimental armor, based on the prototypes their lab had been producing when this battle arrived.

He hadn't wanted her to come up to the ship, but she hadn't wanted him to go up either, so it seemed they were stuck with one another, again.

Always.

He hoped.

Though the fact that she was wearing scavenged Human body armor didn't exactly encourage hopeful thoughts. If they could have swapped armor, he would have, regardless of her objections, but armor designed to fit his trim physique would not fit her…less than streamlined profile.

Still, this assignment at least pulled them off the slaughtering line, even if it did that in order to send them right over it. All his troops were dead, they'd been one of the first groups up and most of them didn't have any of the new wargear, leaving them massively out-equipped as well as outnumbered, though not outclassed. They'd fought well to the end. He couldn't just abandon the last survivor, even if he hadn't been socially involved with her.

Before they could continue their debate over whether or not General Van Doorn was allowed to tag along with Yofi and the rest, both of the psionics twitched as if they'd been struck in the head with a clenched fist. They'd been uncoordinated and twitchy the entire time they'd been on the ship, but this was extreme, even for them and drew the attention of the squabbling soldiers. Yofi continued her examination of the alien technology, unperturbed by the twitchy psionics as she'd worked with far worse.

 ** _Codex: Mental Illness in the Migrant Fleet, Unlocked._**

"You heard that too?" the psionics asked each other, in the tone of one who knows the answer, but asks the question so that another may hear the answer.

They both nodded, simultaneously.

"Well, that's not creepy at all," Yofi muttered to herself, then looked back at the display she was attempting, futilely to access.

Nuke did not believe in restraining his curiosity. Or his volume.

The psionics exchanged an inscrutable look and decided on a sacrifice wordlessly, or at least soundlessly. One spoke, "They know we're here," before the Colonel could explode, she continued, "One of them communicated with us. It said 'You hear our voice, New Ones, now listen well…Long have we watched and waited. So many promising subjects, so many failed efforts. But you have evaded too many of the tests we laid for you…sought help, rather than overcome challenges on your own. You must possess a enduring physical form, paired with an equally adept mental capacity to aid in our ascension and ascend in turn. There is still time to follow the path we have laid out. Come and see the consequences of failure, then join us, follow us, as you must."

"Well, that's not creepy at all," Yofi muttered.

"But," about halfway through their speech, the Colonel had given a single that shifted the attention, and aim, of his squad inward, "you aren't feeling, mind-controlled at all?"

They looked at each other again. "How would we know?" their designated spokeswoman asked.

"Do you feel like shooting any of us?" General Van Doorn asked bluntly.

"No more than usual. And as far as we can tell, neither of us is under their control, but they were definitely able to target the two of us and knew we are psionics."

Nuke hesitated, these were two top tier psionics, who'd been on a dozen deployments with X-Com, even if they weren't really part of the unit (as the Commander had managed to get widespread announcements about the indicators of psionic abilities and tested those with the strongest indicators, bringing in dozens of civilians), but even so he was hesitant to ask. General Van Doorn, who had never seen his men turn on one another under the control of an alien monster, had no such hesitation. "Could you control someone who was as far away as they are?"

"And how far away is that, love?" Yofi asked, voice warm and teasing.

Both psionics flushed somewhat at the close-range backlash of that emotion (as the Quarian didn't have a Mind Shield yet), and the woman broke in before Peter could respond. "We don't know, but we couldn't do that without a line-of-sight," she hesitated, then continued, "but I wouldn't have thought you could communicate like that without line-of-sight either. We're still just dipping our toes in the water's edge here, psionically speaking."

The man shot her a glare and she snorted and smacked him in the shoulder. "That was a fucking terrible pun," she added out loud when it was clear the non-psionics were confused by her behavior.

One of the Quarians approached the Colonel and they had a hushed conversation, then he nodded as he received orders from the Commander through the marine and said in his best 'damn-the-torpedoes' tone, "We go on. Inform me at once of any further communications from, or actions, by the enemy."

There was a general noise which indicated assent, as the sharp discipline of some of the X-Com soldiers contrasted strongly with the generally fairly casual obedience of the Quarian marines and engineers and the almost nonexistent discipline of the civilian psionics.

They advanced slowly, a Quarian infiltrator on point, backed up by the X-Com squad (accompanied by a single Quarian to act as radio operator) in their shield-enhanced armor, then the civilians, with the rest of the Quarians acting as rearguard. They were far ahead of their own lines now and were occasionally running into stragglers from groups of X-Rays already engaged or entire units heading for the slowly-expanding front. They destroyed the former and diverted around the later.

They came to a one of the doorways of energy the Ethereals loved so much. As there was no way to slip through it, the infiltrator holstered his shotgun and pulled a sniper rifle from his back and retreated to join the X-Com team's sniper, Captain Min "Longbow" Liu at the rear of the group. The assault team burst in and gunned down a Sectoid commander and a pair of escorting Sectoids, while the creatures futilely sent bursts of psionic energy at the Mind Shield-protected soldiers.

The rest of the team piled into the room and the psionics jerked, breaking their slide for cover and sending them both sprawling on the ground. The Quarian rearguard pulled them into cover and this time it was the man who spoke the Ethereal's words. "The New Ones face the earliest efforts of the Ethereal Ones, the first…failure. Though possessed of a certain brilliance, they are marred by their cowardice and frailty which made them cruel…and ultimately useless. To fix their nature, we changed them and in so doing made them less, made them cloned tools. This will be your fate if you do not follow the path and succeed where the others have failed."

The Colonel ignored them, focusing his eyes on the room, which was a large open space, split into three pathways, with a central elevated one and the flanking ones lower down, but connected by ramps, or those bizarre anti-grav elevators the Ethereals used in the place of stairs (another simple technology which seemed to have passed the aliens by). They were right in front of the elevated central path, with ramps down to the two lower routes on either side, and had taken cover by the guard-rail which prevented a fall into the lower levels of the ship as there was no floor for at least half a dozen levels.

The very moment the psionic stopped speaking, a pair of Cyberdiscs and a trio of Drones slid out of hidden compartments atop the heavy arches which connected the various paths, giving them a height advantage, but a complete absence of cover. The Colonel dropped his heavy plasma rifle and ripped the blaster launcher from his back and landed a HEAT round amongst one of the two clusters of enemies, ripping apart a Cyberdisc and a drone. The other Drone in that group was on the other side of the Cyberdisc from the impact and survived, shielded by the body of its companion.

The other Cyberdisc blossomed from its disc form into its attack form and hurled a grenade before going down under a fusillade of fire from the rest of the team. Major Masud "Breaker" Bin Momen, dropped the Scimitar shotgun he'd taken from a dead Quarian when his alloy cannon ran out of ammunition and hurled himself atop the grenade before it went off, hoping that the heavy armor he wore as the squad's assault trooper would let him survive it. It did not. Captain Raimonda "Doc" Murmokaite was still trying to save him when the next attack came.

The pair of Sectoids who hadn't joined their commander in a futile assault now joined the surviving Drones in attacking. The attack met with complete failure. Though the Drones' laser punched easily through everyone's shields, they were too low power to do much more than sting, even through the unmodified armor of the Quarian marines. If they'd focused on the suited, but unarmored engineers, or on the barely armored, and unsuited Yofi, they'd have had better luck, but they naturally focused on the higher threat troopers and marines, thereby accomplishing exactly nothing before their death or destruction.

"More," the psionics groaned from their cover. Now they were speaking in synch. Despite Yofi's whispered comment, it was _extremely_ creepy. "Another attempt, this one inspired. Two subjects, each with a glaring weakness—brought together in the hopes of a symbiotic strength. And yet this newfound power left them devoid of higher thought. Lacking in comprehension. Another…useless effort and a warning for you, New Ones, of the consequences of relying on technology to cover your weakness, rather than expose it and grow stronger thereby. This is a warning the death of the New One's kin should convey as well."

A snapped command got the rookies who made up the bulk of the X-Com force under his command moving, despite the dead officer, a sight they'd never seen before. X-Com mythology said that officers didn't die, anyone who made it to that rank was too tough to die. It wasn't true, but it had helped stiffen the rookies' spines, now obedience would have to do. It did, in the absence of any enemies. Then it was time for the real work.

Nuke pulled Doc off the corpse that had been Breaker and rested his hands on her shoulders, staring into her eyes for a time. Eventually she nodded to him and moved away a little jerkily to check and make sure no one else was injured. She was an officer of X-Com and didn't need orders to hold, regardless of what else happened.

"This whole place is lined with tunnels and trap doors," one of the engineers said in the strained, but respectful silence. "If they want to kill us, we're going to be in trouble. I can drop sensor packages on each door I detect, which'll give us some warning based on vibrations that something's moving in them, but they're hardened against sensors and they're very well built."

"Then how did you detect them?" Yofi asked, actually curious, despite the circumstances.

The engineer jerked a thumb at one of the other Quarians, who explained, "The mass is wrong, for if they were solid."

"And how do you know that?"

The Quarian looked down, hands rubbing together shamefacedly, biotic power flickered around her fingers, "Sorry, I tried for a **pull** on those creatures, but…I tripped and discharged it into the wall. It felt like I was trying to pull a shuttle craft, not an asteroid."

"You're a biotic?" one of the Quarian marines asked.

"Yes, but I've seen that look before, don't even think it!" the biotic answered, leaving the Humans in the group confused as both Quarians were wearing full suits which concealed their faces as thoroughly as the rest of their bodies, she most definitively could not have seen any look.

"I'm no Asari commando, or cabal, okay?" she snapped, "You want to know what my job is…was until the Admiral decided to crash my home into an alien death machine?" she didn't bother to wait for a response, "I was the safety and zero-gee movement teacher for the littles on the _Levsheppa_. In my spare time, I coached the zero-gee dance team. The most dangerous thing I did before today was help out on a few rescue and recovery operations when the teams needed something heavy moved at an awkward angle and they couldn't just turn off the gravity. Look, if you want someone to **pull** a kid back to the hull when he turns off his mag boots to go diving into the void, or **throw** a dancer across a compartment, or even **lift** a beam off some poor trapped miner, then I'm your girl, but I swear to the Ancestors, if I hear you yell 'drop a **singularity** across that corridor,' like this is an episode of _Blue Justice_ , then I will block the corridor with your crushed corpse, okay?"

 ** _Codex: Blue Justice, Unlocked._**

The Colonel called them strictly to order, ignored the crazy lady talking about space magic, dragged the psionics back to their feet and powered his way forward. The next chamber opened, same as the last, except for the five Floaters resting on the exhaust of their jetpacks. As before, the psionics staggered and spoke as they were pulled into cover.

"The New Ones face a great foe, and an equally great disappointment. When their organic form failed to evolve, it was given the strength of a machine, creating this…merciless, fearless, killer…a fate worse than death. The fate of the New Ones if they do not turn from the seductive technology of these Outsiders and return to the path of destiny, of ascension, of purpose."

Sniper rounds instantly downed two of the Floaters. The other three began a strafing run, only to collide in a tangle of limbs when the biotic managed to land a **throw** on their lead. Bursts from the marines and troopers took them down before they could disentangle themselves.

"Audio—heading up there!" the engineer shouted, jumping to his feet and pointing to an almost invisible hatch. Even as one of the rookies tackled him to the ground and covered him with her body, the hatch was sliding open to let a trio of Chryssalids charge forth. The incredibly fast and flexible aliens would have been a nightmare if they'd made it out into the open, but with the warning, the assault team was able to focus fire on the hatch and cut them to pieces before they could get loose.

The psionics spoke again, in unison, which just got creepier. "A curious endeavor. The search for the Gift in the most…unsavory of beings. They were little more than insects when their uplift began and in their failure became the most dangerous of predators…incapable of direction or understanding, they were deemed fit only to breed and die. The Ethereal Ones desire so much more from you. As we did from them."

Colonel Reilly grabbed the Quarian marine who was acting as intermediary and politely, if loudly, requested permission to ditch the spooks, because they were acting crazy. The Commander, through the Quarian, denied permission, saying that the assault on the command center would do no good if they couldn't take control. Psionics would be needed for that, as would engineers. He had support moving towards them. If the psionics turned on them, they could be eliminated and a second group would arrive after the control room was cleared of whatever influence was affecting the psionics, but all other groups were a significant distance away.

Muscles jumped in the Colonel's jaw (and probably elsewhere, but given his massive body armor, it was impossible to tell). "You heard the man, we advance. Marines, you got the point, they're throwing their slaves at us one at a time, so its Thin Men, Mutons, Sectopods, or Outsiders next, I'm betting on Thin Men, so be ready."

The marine sergeant flicked a glance at the interlocutor who just shrugged. No new orders had come in and the Commander was still broadcasting with the authority of Semmi'Zorah, who'd been given authority to negotiate with the Humans by the Conclave. With their ship, the _Qwib-Qwib,_ destroyed and the Admiral dead, they would follow orders, even if they didn't much like being ordered about by a brash Human.

The moment the door opened, the psionics spoke again, "Long was our search…betrayed by the weakness of the New Ones, their unwillingness to grow and the interference of Outsiders. There is still time to return to the path, but your options grow ever narrower."

The marines' obedience was rewarded by facing down only a trio of Thin Men, which fell easily to automatic fire from a dozen Quarians. The Thin Men were at a horrific disadvantage against the shielded, suited, and immune to their poison, Quarian marines and didn't manage to accomplish anything.

"A valiant effort…a being of intelligence and exceptional loyalty, easily adapted to serve our needs. They were unable to embrace the Gift. The Gift you embrace, while failing to follow the path."

The Colonel reordered his troops, moving his heaviest assault troopers into position. Whatever was left, it would take concerted fire to take down. They burst through all at once, Quarians smoothly moving in behind the heavily armored X-Com troopers, dropping grenades and **drones** in amongst the cluster of Mutons that awaited them. That broke up their charge and left them easy pickings for the X-Com troopers.

"Now…the New Ones confront a greater threat—a rare strength, found in an easily controlled breed. And yet, they are incapable of brilliance, of independence…serving only to fight and die, as did those who came before them. You are meant for greater things. You _cannot_ turn your back on them and us," the psionics chorused, somehow audible despite the shouts, shots and explosions as the soldiers dealt with the Mutons.

Well, except for the Berserker, who shrugged off the grenade to the face, ran through a **drone** , shouldered aside the rookie who was trying to empty her shotgun into the mad X-Ray's face and slammed both hand-blades into the gut of the Quarian sergeant. A sideways rip and he cut the poor man in half with a proud bellow.

The Berserker was cut down as his mighty hands were beating out his triumph on his chest, splattering the surroundings in the blood and viscera of the dead Quarian. The psionics approached and looked down at the shattered body. This time no one dove forward to pull them into cover and shield them from any harm. Not when they heard the words they were speaking.

"Weakness in their blood, in their bone, in their spirit, in their mind. Only their degenerate technology lets them stand and walk and live. They do not embrace the Gift and so are doomed to death, or servitude if their form is capable of adaptation to serve the Ethereal Ones, or the New Ones. See their fate and learn from it. Follow the path."

The Colonel now understood how the biotic could have said she knew that look, despite the marines masks and suits, because he knew the look all of the Quarians were wearing. His own soldiers were wearing it too and he struggled to keep it off his own face, struggled to keep discipline and not bludgeon the psionics, spokespeople for their cruel, mocking enemy to the ground. For a moment he was frozen as the nearest Quarian stepped forward, but General Van Doorn spoke up, "That's what they say, is it? My goodness, they're suddenly chatty now that we're on their doorstep, gun in hand. Let's see what they say when we kick down that door, shall we?"

The rest of the civilians joined them a moment later, not having heard the conversation and the mood was broken.

"Forward," the Colonel yelled, reordering his troops, sparing Peter a grateful nod. The General returned it, but remained still as Yofi had joined him and was fussing over some dent in her masterwork, his armor.

"Sectopods, Outsiders and Ethereals left. Think that's really it, Colonel, or is there gonna be some sorta big boss waiting for us behind the last door? I figure it's some sorta giant brain thing," Longbow said, ostentatiously reloading her massive sniper rifle.

Nuke shrugged at his sniper, used to her…unusual and occasionally inappropriate sense of humor.

Doc was less sanguine about the whole thing, probably because she was on her third attempt to pop a rookie's shoulder back into its socket after she'd been knocked flat by a charging Berserker, or possibly because her armor was still covered in Breaker's blood. Either way, she made a sharp comment about how this wasn't a video game and made an equally sharp movement, finally forcing the bone back into its proper place. She managed to finish the comment before the trooper screamed and tried to pass out, only to be prevented by a sharp slap to the jaw.

"Really? Because it sorta seems like a video game, what with the fact that they aren't rushing us all at once, but are doing this piecemeal bullshit. And not just right now. Would X-Com even exist if they'd just dropped this baby over DC?"

There was an awkward silence as everyone considered that, but Yofi interrupted it casually. "Yeah, yeah, we've all been listening. They had a corridor they wanted you to follow, but you didn't. Whatever it is they want, they aren't getting it, so can we get on with it?" She'd finished with Peter's armor and was getting bored.

"Forward," Nuke ordered, breaking up the conversation.

They approached the door, bunching up as they prepared to breach. "Weltor'Xol Vas'Qwib-Qwib," the Quarian woman standing behind him said in his ear.

"What?"

"That was his name. My sergeant's. If you care."

The next door opened, before he could respond and the psionics spoke, "Artificial warriors…created to supplement the limitations of the many failures. Crafted with a singular purpose…it ultimately contributes little to our cause. Still there is hope, if only the New Ones will walk the path."

"WALKERS!" one of the marines yelled as everyone scattered into cover in the face of the two Sectopods stationed on the nearby paths. The automatic weapons fire from the Quarians didn't do much, except distract them and buy time for the engineers to advance and drown one of the Sectopods in half-a-dozen **incinerates**. The other took Nuke's last rocket to the face and went down, while preparing to swamp the entrance in cluster bombs.

"Movement, behind us!" the engineer yelled as two Muton Elites crawled out of the tunnels, hefting their heavy plasma weapons and hosed down the Quarian engineers who were behind the main line, bunched up in the doorway, while their fellows still faced the shattered husks of the Sectopods. Lacking the shield modifications of their more experienced fellows, the engineers were cooked alive by their own melting armor, their situation not helped by the fact that they'd just released their own balls of superheated energy. Only Yofi survived, having advanced nearer the General than the rest, letting her retreat behind the soldiers.

The psionics survived as well, because they were even further back, still resting behind cover as the slaughter occurred. The biotic was the only one to get a chance to do more than scream and her **throw** impacted the Muton Elite's head, snapping his neck, but it knocked his corpse back against the wall, keeping it vertical as a dead finger held down the trigger and automatic plasma fire superheated the air until the weapon finally ran dry. His accuracy was nothing to write home about, but it was enough to hit the shields of the engineers and continue the heat transfer. The other Muton had to reload as well and took a sniper round to the skull from the Quarian infiltrator. Too late to save his fellows, but as fast as he could manage. A plasma round from Longbow hit the other Muton's corpse a moment after it stopped firing, but before it slumped to the ground.

An inferno of melted metal and burning flesh filled the doorway between the two groups, separating them. Inevitably, the psionics began to speak. "Behold, New Ones, the consequences of relying on technology and Outsiders. Technology can always be overcome by technology, strength by strength, only from the Gift does true unity, true superiority grow. Follow the path and you will ascend along with us, time runs short."

The infiltrator glanced at the sniper, "Probably best the other marines weren't around to hear that," he muttered.

"Probably," Longbow agreed after a moment. "Any idea how we get through that?" she added, nodding towards the inferno.

"Rest here until that cools down and reinforcements catch up? Preferably with some sort of leash for these two?"

"And some replacement engineers for the whole, taking over the ship thing?" Longbow added.

"That would be nice."

"Somehow I doubt that's the path the Nuke's going to take."

"Nuke?"

"Colonel Reilly, it's a nickname."

The translator puzzled over that, then spoke at some length in the infiltrator's ear.

"Ah, like Dagger."

"Sorry, who?"

"The ironically nicknamed sergeant who got stabbed back there."

"Ah. Oh," she realized something embarrassing. "Sorry, what was your name?"

"Lop'Hand Vas'Qwib-Qwib. I'd offer you my hand, but, well, you know how it is."

They were back to back as they spoke, watching the walls for more surprises. Before Lop could respond, a comm signal commanded them to take cover, away from the inferno. A quick movement and a word brought Longbow with him into cover with the psionics, much though he wanted to be away from them. A moment after he signaled they were in cover, a massive explosion filled the entrance as Yofi dropped a **cryo blast** atop the burning wreckage. The impact of the super-cooled subatomic particles on the superheated air and metal was extraordinarily violent, shattering the walls of the ship and even produced a minor hull breach, though it was sealed with expanding foam before the chambers could decompress.

The four who'd remained behind were able to pick their way through the no longer superheated entrance, though they had to be careful as even armored boots were in danger from the ruins of the deck. The psionics basically had to be carried as they were barely even present any longer.

"There's only Outsiders left and we should be able to handle them well enough while still holding back a larger rear-guard," Nuke argued.

"We won't have any warning of future sneak attacks through the tunnels, Milor's dead, after all," Peter argued.

"I've got the same program, he shared it with all of us," Yofi jerked a head at the surviving Quarians, "even if most of us aren't exactly trained to use it. But I can manage well enough and most of the sensors he dropped survived."

"Still, detail a squad to guard her and the psionics. We need them alive, if we're going to complete our mission here," Colonel Reilly ordered the senior surviving Quarian marine. She nodded and gave orders, leaving half her surviving troops behind as the rest joined the dozen X-Com troopers remaining as they prepared to breach the next room.

The moment they entered, diving into cover, the psionics spoke. This time Lop made sure their words were broadcast to the other Quarians, "The New Ones continue to stray from the path, this is their last chance to turn back."

This chamber was larger than the others, but it maintained the multi-level theme of the others, but the central path was blocked out by rising tiers of metal, leaving only the two ramps, one to the left and one to the right to move upwards. Also unlike the others, the enemy didn't attack the moment they burst into the room. Instead they were faced with a climb towards a platform they couldn't see anything on. They scattered into taller cover which would protect them, even from fire from the elevated position.

The psionics and Yofi joined them as Colonel Reilly sent Longbow and Lop forward, both sliding from cover to cover, activating **tactical cloaks** whenever they weren't in cover and made their way up the ramps to get eyes on the platform. The whole time both of them wished for the drones with **tactical cloaks** installed which R &D was promising were possible with Elerium power cells and eezo cores. The first time they, separately passed an Ethereal in stasis, they reacted identically, and amusingly. Fortunately, no one was able to see that, as they were **cloaked**.

Finally they reached the top level and simultaneously reported in to their respective commanders, informing them that there were a trio of Ethereals, each standing on a raised dias, with a quartet of Muton Elites standing between the ramps and the diases, all awaiting the approach of the team, which was a bit disturbing. One of the Ethereals was a head taller than the others. Behind the tallest Ethereal, there was a massive device, which appeared to be glowing purple, gathering behind the tallest Ethereal.

"Behold the greatest failure, the Ethereal Ones. We who failed to ascend as we should have. We who were cast out. We who were doomed to feed on the Gift of lesser beings…as we sought to uplift them…to prepare them…for what lies ahead. Time runs short, we both must ascend, soon. You cannot abandon the path. You cannot abandon us, or we both face a fate far worse than mere death. Join us, New Ones."

The psionics' words were muffled by the fact that each of them was dogpiled by marines and rookies when they spoke, as the soldiers were trying not to announce their presence and loudly echoing the thoughts of one of the enemy would not help with that. Colonel Reilly discussed how to handle that force with the senior surviving Quarian (whose name he still didn't know, though he did know the dead sergeant's name, he wasn't a fast learner).

Experience said that anything new wasn't going to be easy to kill, so he gave the agreed upon order and the scouts moved into position targeting the two normal Ethereals. Lop closed to point-blank range silently, shotgun falling into his hands, while Longbow retreated to a corner that let her get a bead on the Ethereal's skull while still being mostly sheltered from the Mutons. When they signaled they were in position, Nuke was about to order the assault, the psionics spoke again, though quietly as the soldiers had ended their dogpile, but each psionic was being held by a husky rookie.

"Come to us, New Ones. We will save you from those who would doom you by their weakness and folly. Join us and we will ascend together, escaping the coming doom," the psionics said, muscles jerking, then they froze.

"Mind control?" the Quarian asked, twitching slightly and glancing at her comrades.

"I don't think so. They'd be fighting harder. I've seen that," Doc put in.

The woman pulled slightly, head turning towards Colonel Reilly, she did not speak, but her eyes focused and her movements were deliberate. A nod from Nuke and the rookie released her, stepping back and clear out of reach. The woman stepped forward and reached towards a grenade hanging from the harness over Reilly's armor. He didn't stop her.

General Van Doorn did, hand snapping out to catch hers. She shot him a sharp look, but he didn't release her. The other psionic had also stopped struggling, but did not move with purpose. He did not move at all, but merely hung loose and limp in the hands of the rookie, death in his eyes. "Let her go, General," Reilly ordered.

"Are you insane? You're giving her a grenade?"

"Yes. I know that look and it's not mind control. Just get out of the way, General."

General Van Doorn looked around for support and found a distinct lack of it from anyone except Yofi, who still hadn't managed to find a weapon (though she had at least upgraded her omni-tool). "Don't touch it until we're clear," he ordered her, lifting the plasma pistol he'd taken from a Thin Man back at the start of the battle and covering the woman as he and Yofi retreated behind other cover.

The others scattered as well, obedient to Colonel Reilly's words, but unwilling to risk their lives on the psionic's control. Finally he nodded and she took one grenade, then a second from his armor and walked slowly up the right ramp, hands and grenades held behind her back. The Muton Elites parted for her and she walked directly to the tallest Ethereal and it stepped forward, extending a long-fingered hand towards her as she came to him, obedient to his command. Two of the Mutons saw the grenades behind her back even as she pulled the pins out. They reacted, but too later.

"We are not your slaves-" she said before the explosion swept her away, knocking the closing Elites to the ground and sending the towering Ethereal back against its dais with bone breaking force.

The other psionic's head lowered, his voice barely audible, as he finished his partner's thought. "Nor ever shall be."

"CHARGE!" Nuke ordered.

"Fire," the Quarian commander ordered.

Longbow and Lop had fired the moment the grenades went off and both normal-sized Ethereals were down, missing chunks of their heads. Lop was down as well, he'd gotten off two shots, but the unexpected explosion had injured the infiltrator badly, especially as he'd closed to point blank range to use his shotgun on the monsters. The Elites hesitated. Lop was down, they couldn't see Longbow, but they could see the charging soldiers and, with no other instructions, moved to attack.

One tried to toss a grenade, but went down to Longbow's fire from behind and the other three were simply too outnumbered to do more than waste a handful of shots on their shields and get shot to pieces attempting to charge in past the shields. Longbow slid forward to check on Lop. He was dead. She wasn't surprised, two grenades, modified with alien and Quarian tech at that range would kill anyone. It was, therefore, somewhat surprising when the Ethereal who'd taken two grenades to the face grabbed her from behind.

The surviving psionic's voice was acid pain and bloodied triumph, but mostly it was loud, "This is _not_ your path! Not your purpose! You need our guidance to hone this power…without us you have no hope of ascension in time. Death is better than what comes. You have rejected every effort to save you, but still we give you a gift, New One. We give all of you a gift. Death."

The Ethereal lifted Longbow easily in four long fingered hands, one holding each limb and pulled, ripping the woman apart and showering everyone in the area in viscera and blood. The artifact behind him pulsed an ugly purple and the room began to melt, three rookies and four marines were in the area which he hit with his power. The former lacked the experience to properly evade, the later trusted to their shields to buy them time.

 ** _Codex: ?-NO FILE FOUND—ERROR._**

They didn't even have time to scream before the psionic forces ripped them apart. It was like the alien had opened a rift to hell.

Horrific.

Impossible.

The survivors' concentrated fire ripped him apart in turn, before he could do it again, but that didn't undo any of his action.

"Death," the psionic repeated desperately, as Yofi dragged him up the ramp, screaming a warning about the sensors they'd left behind. Massive forces were inbound. They needed to resolve this fast, or they were, in fact, dead. Especially as the giant glowing artifact was pulsing in a fashion which was disturbingly like power building to a point of no return.

The survivors took up position to defend them, assuming the position held by the Muton Elites and Ethereals so recently, though they had the sense to use the daises as cover, not as platforms. All they had to do was hold. It was the civilians' turn to think and it was their responsibility to solve this. The soldiers just had to shoot anything which tried to interfere. Easy. It was easy. And they certainly weren't trying to convince themselves of that because half their number were dead, or anything.

Yofi ignored the blinking, terrifying artifact, in favor of door control. The psionic was almost catatonic. A slap to the fact took care of that, mostly. For the moment. "Connect to their system and find some way to jam those hatches shut. There must be a way to lock them in place, if only to prevent them from opening accidentally during acceleration," she pulled the psionic to a bank of controls in the back of the room.

"I don't know how to do any of that! I was a paralegal, all right? You want me to file some legal documents, or smash someone with my mind, fine I can do that, but I don't know how to use any of this," he waved a hand at the consoles, flashing alien symbols at him.

"I know. I do," Yofi said.

"What the fuck are you—" the psionic began, then stopped as she caught his gloved hand in her bare one and pulled the glove off, then lifted it to her head.

"Like I said, I know. We don't have time for me to talk you through this, so let's do it the rough way, eh, _telepath_?" Her teeth were sharper than a Human's, but the edge in her smile was all her own.

"You don't know what you're offering."

"I think I do, boy."

"What you're suggesting isn't even possible."

"Like melting people isn't possible? We've barely scratched the surface of what can be done. Do it now, classify it later."

"I…if I do what you're suggesting, I don't know if I'll be able to get it all back in there. Or, any of it back in there. Diana was the brave one, the smart one, she might have been able to, but I…"

"The blood of thousands already stains this deck. If we don't do this, that will become millions. Get on with it, lad, you're wasting time." A handful of shots taking down an early arriving Chryssalid drove her point home and he nodded and stole her mind.

 **XXXXX**

There were no words, there was information. There was knowledge. There was power. There was too much space and no boundaries between her self and the universe. She started to dissolve, spreading throughout everything. It would be nice to say that seeing the battles, allies and enemies, the war, all that brought her self back to herself. It was not. It was an attack. For in addition to everything else, there were also others in the system. Ethereals and Outsiders filled it and found an intruder, striking at her, but she was not some fragment of a mind and she knew systems. The Ethereals used the system making commands of the Outsiders, for the Outsiders were the system.

And she was in the system as well. The orders she gave were harsh things, protecting herself with the Outsiders, spreading her attention far, too far. She saw terrible things, Quarians broken beneath boot and claw, Humans burnt to ash, ships shattered by blasts of fusion power, Skyrangers falling to scout craft, which burned in turn, engines destroyed by missiles leaving it to fall helplessly into the atmosphere. And she saw her own body, crumpling from the grip of the psionic, mind emptied of everything that would have kept her body alive.

She saw Peter see her fall, saw him break, saw him turn back to the enemy and hold the line.

Distracted, an Ethereal three levels down and half a mile away drove a spike of power into her brain and she felt a year of her childhood vanish, torn from her mind like a finger torn from her body. In fury she overloaded a nearby console, the sparks would set the Ethereal's robes on fire, when they reached them. Yofi laughted at that thought, as she laughed at the lack of proper safe-guards in their so-powerful-enemy's systems. They relied on the Outsiders to manage such things, the Outsiders she suborned with more precise commands.

Still, she could not win for long, even now she could feel the Ethereals mustering. There were shockingly few of them, maybe a hundred scattered throughout the ship, but that was still more than enough to kill her.

If she was alone.

She was not.

Every identified psionic was on this ship and it was packed with engineers. But she couldn't communicate with them. The computer didn't have any sort of intercom system, or radio communication, they appeared to rely entirely on computer-to-computer text communication or psionic communication/commands. She lacked the capacity for the latter and the former wasn't feasible as the system lacked any capability to even display Quarian or Human characters.

Then she remembered the threat they'd broadcast. It wasn't useful for communicating within the ship, but she could broadcast to the planet and then the Commander could get that message back to the ship. Then it was just a matter of them helping. All that thought passed in the instant before the sparking, exploding console had actually reached the Ethereal's cloak. Time was not passing right. Her body had not yet hit the ground. The communication was so difficult, it required her to slow down the words, even as the Ethereals clawed at her mind. By locking herself into only the radio system she managed it. After all, they didn't care about that system, they'd only build it to bully Humanity into obedience.

With that done, she turned her attention to the forces attacking her comrades (her former comrades?) and the paths they followed. She'd been wrong about the locks, but it was possible to slow the enemy advance by crashing the anti-grav chutes they relied upon to go up and down levels. That was easy enough. That would buy them time. But the tunnels were full of X-Rays, coming up from other levels, without need for anti-grav.

Discovering that the tunnels were usually venting systems for the sublight engines was wonderful. The external engines were mostly fried, but it was possible to activate the internal power supplies and vent used coolant through them, down to the recycling centers, flooding the X-Rays down through the system. As the hatches were designed to open into the tunnels, the pressure of the coolant held them shut. A quick flush of the system was all she could manage, but it was enough to relieve the pressure on Peter and his fellows, at least for a while.

It was then that she realized what the giant flashing artifact was. More importantly, she recognized what it was trying to do. And her ability to help the fighters vanished, along with her ability to do anything besides block the ship from collapsing its jump drive into a momentary black hole which would consume the planet, the Migrant Fleet and everything else for a light second in every direction.

It already had the power it need. All she could do was deny it the permission to act, again and again and again as the Ethereals tried to override her, tried to slash her defenseless mind to ribbons. And they succeeded. But only in the latter.

 **XXXXX**

Wallace Stevens was the first psionic to respond, to the Commander's orders. He wasn't a strong psionic, but he was fast enough to identify where on the ship the Ethereals were communicating from and get out before they could destroy more than his memories of high school, which, frankly, he was happy to lose.

A moment later he shared that information with the Commander, through the Quarians who guarded him. Targets were prioritized for locations which were close to the battle-lines and strikes were called in on those areas which were close to the hull and didn't have still-active weapons in place. The vast majority of the scout ships had been destroyed and the hull was being cleansed, but with the weapons in recessed, hidden ports, it wasn't uncommon for observers to think it was clear only to have a hidden weapon appear and burn down a fighter with a blast from a plasma point-defense weapon, or vaporize a chunk of a ship with a fusion weapon.

Platoons of Quarian marines on the hull were harder for the built in defenses to handle, so Floaters and suited Mutons were trying to hold them back, but neither group had much experience with such combat and they had a rough time holding back the tide of marines pouring from the Fleet, though the marines were still fighting as small groups, coordinated only by the Commander and the staff of officers he was borrowing to assist him as the battle's scope continued to grow.

More psionics poured into the computer system, working as teams to target Ethereals who were further inside the ship. It was a hard thing, because they were generally far more powerful and experienced than the psionics, but they were outnumbered and they didn't work as teams. Moreover, they were trying to direct a battle, as well as defend themselves from mental and physical attack. They failed. One by one they fell, minds destroyed, bodies broken and with each one, the X-Rays' actions grew more simple, but more determined as they reacted to fewer and fewer commands.

But the largest changes didn't occur until the last of the Ethereals fell. It had disconnected itself from the computers which ran the ship and instead focused on commanding the troops, sending massive waves of troops against single locations, prompting horribly bloody battles. But the Ethereal didn't move after disconnecting, so a combined team of X-Com troopers and Quarian infiltrators slid into place and took the Ethereal out with a handful of shots from a sniper rifle.

It would be nice to say that the X-Rays simply surrendered, or collapsed without their masters. Instead everything went absolutely insane. They turned on one another, charged into fire, committed suicide, ran away, did everything and anything that ran through their, under-used minds.

What that didn't include was coordinated attacks on the expanding perimeter of the boarders. Nor did it include any sort of coordinated defense to attacks from that perimeter. There were thousands of casualties still to occur, but the battle was won. It was the aftermath that was left.

 **XXXXX**

"She wasn't in her right mind. She wasn't in her mind at all!" Bradford argued.

"It doesn't matter," Semmi said. "The ship chose its captain by the voice of an ancestor. There are thousands dead and a Liveship basically destroyed. I know you lost more people and a city, but this buys us all time to figure out some sort of longer term solution, how to handle the survivors and how to actually control that damn ship."

"Has the Patrol Fleet found anything new?" the Commander asked, changing the subject.

"No. With the capital ship captured and other vessels destroyed, it appears we've defeated the enemy. The Patrol Fleet will continue trying to backtrace to see if they have any planets or other bases. It'll just be a best guess though, based on the fact that they seem to have been travelling in straight lines, but we can't be sure of that. Anything new out of the captured ship?"

"No. Ms. Seha has fully…dissipated. Some of our surviving psionics have managed to access the system, but whatever coordinate system they use to describe where they've been, it doesn't track with any of our systems."

"But no sign of other ships?" Semmi pushed.

"Not as far as we can tell, but the Ethereals don't think like us," the Commander concluded.

"True enough."

"I hate to drag us back to the topic at hand, but the fact that his dying crazy lover said his name as she was dying doesn't make Peter Van Doorn qualified to operate a ship capable of destroying the planet. He's not even X-Com!"

"He's Human and he's okay to the Quarians, so we're sticking with him," the Commander said, with more honesty than was entirely wise in front of the Quarian representative.

"Is there anything else X-Com needs from me or mine? If not, I've got to get to work. Disaster relief is going well, but literally everyone wants to talk treaties and tech transfer and colonies and future profit…"

"The future. The bodies aren't even cold yet, but everyone's looking to profit," the Commander said, a bit bitterly.

"Well, for that and the magic recipe for Meld and Elerium," Semmi agreed with him, without bitterness. "That will shape our future just as much as any treaties, or choices made by General Van Doorn."

"True enough."

Bradford frowned, then driven either by shame at his words or mere curiosity, he asked, "What about Ms. Seha's body? It's still alive, right?"

"It was still breathing, but her crew took care of that and took the body for recycling," Semmi said, as if it were the most natural thing in the word.

Both Humans flinched a bit at that, beginning to truly realize the depth of the challenges facing them as they moved into a world, into a universe at peace, but far larger than they'd thought.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Mental Illness in the Migrant Fleet:_**

 _The treatment of the mentally ill in the Migrant Fleet is based on two competing impulses. First, the lack of any room for marginal people and second, the need for every available person to work. This resulted in competing incentives. Before birth, significant effort and resources are invested identifying all genetic illnesses and making sure none are passed on and aborting any fetuses with such illnesses. After birth, but before they leave for their Pilgrimage there's more margin for undetectable issues, with a great deal of care being available to those unfortunates as they are mere children, to be protected._

 _However, regardless of the degree of impairment caused by the illness, they are still required to go on their Pilgrimage. This permits the Fleet to rid itself of those who cannot carry their own weight without resorting to euthanasia. For those who return, a great deal of effort goes into working with them, because there's no margin to waste skilled crew._

 ** _Codex: Blue Justice:_**

 _One of the more popular exports of Thessia's generally fairly bland entertainment industry,_ Blue Justice _was created to compete with the more violent and exotic entertainment industries based on Ilium, which had come to dominate the Thessian market. Intended to use some of the same techniques for more valuable ends,_ Blue Justice _, was supposed to be a historic biopic of a Thessian Justicar, Selar T'kani during the Krogan Rebellions._

 _The first four episodes indeed followed that formula, though with somewhat more violence that most entertainment produced on Thessia (indeed, the Selar's graphic, on-screen execution of a murderer provoked more than four thousand complaints to the Thessian Bureau of Standards and Decency)._

 _The introduction of acclaimed character actress Mopalli T'Mon as the matriarch pirate turned privateer and the justicar's main rival took the show quickly away from anything resembling historical accuracy and straight into the debates over intra-Asari relationships. Urdnot Brick, intended to be Selar's love interest instead found himself relegated to a secondary role as the thuggish and brutal Warlord Batan. The show is most famous for being the first to show intra-Asari intimate relations on screen in the modern age and for its wildly expensive fight scenes, which rely heavily on Mopalli's commando experience and Brick's durability to be feasible._

 **Author's Note: The psionics here react a bit more to the Uber Ethereal's communication because, powerful though they are, none of them have been in a Gollop Chamber and they aren't up to the caliber of the Volunteer.**

 **Whoops, I just realized in my earlier discussion of how Mass Effect treats plasma, I left out the most on point example,** incinerate. **It does decent, if halved damage to shielded foes and continues to do damage after shields fail. I choose to view that as a game mechanic to handle the heat and burns which might come from such an impact, and its shield damage is a result of artificially increasing the projectile's mass, which the Ethereals probably could do, but didn't bother with, as they didn't understand mass effect shielding works.**

 **Next time: Next time, we jump ahead about a century and do an info dump. And some explosions, because there are always explosions.**

 **As always, reviews/comments are always welcome.**


	8. Intermission Part 1: Unknown Power

**Intermission Part 1: Unknown Power**

 **Author's Note: As previously mentioned, we're jumping ahead about a century. This means we're getting quite a bit of info-dump, most in dialogue (hopefully not too clunkily) and some in Codex entries. As always, the Codex entries are entirely optional. It should be entirely possible to read and (hopefully) enjoy, without reading any of the Codex entries.**

 **Reviews: Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter.**

 **There was one review which asked for a bit of reaction to the victory, unfortunately, I didn't see a good way to fit that in. I may add a bit onto the end of the last chapter later, but it's already very long. This is mostly a note for when I go back through after finishing the story to see if that's still warranted.**

 **The same review also asked about how closely we're hewing to canon in the ME verse. The answer is…up to a point. Everything which happened in ME up until the Ethereal War still happened. However the Reapers have a very different motivation here. Their actions are the same, but the explanation is more X-Comy.**

 **Finally, there was a question about mech troopers. That will mostly be answered in the next chapter.**

 **This chapter's fairly short, but the next two are longer and all of them are a bit slower and calmer than the story so far. As always, reviews and comments are welcome.**

Rael'Zorah, senior, examined the options. There were a great many options and this was a critical decision. His dear wife had made her position extremely clear, as had their cousins and sibs. However, in the end, it wasn't their decision.

In the end, it wasn't even his decision.

"KITTY!" his son demanded, pointing at the set of kittens playing in the store window, and completely ignoring the Natak, nicely native to Rannoch and able to survive on the Rannoformed Europa with no difficulty.

 ** _Codex: Rannoforming, Unlocked._**

Rael couldn't really blame his son. The Natak lacked the plush fur of either cats, or dogs. Its sleek scaled skin wasn't unattractive, but it definitely wasn't cuddly. Still, he'd sort of hoped…a cat was going to be a pain in the ass to care for on Europa. Still, he'd promised. And it would teach the lad to take care of others.

"KITTY!" his son repeated, pulling him inside.

Probably.

 **XXXXX**

Observer Alex Nar Europa woke up as the alarms blared through his ear implant. That was why they paid him the medium sized bucks and would pay him a large bonus if he finished up his tour without going nuts (though the contract referred to that as 'completing the deployment successfully'). Information coming from the passive sensor drones they'd deployed before going quiet themselves, streamed across the screens in front of his eyes as the Observer took station in the Gollop Chamber and began to transmit everything he saw back to Command.

 ** _Codex: Observer Corps, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

"By the Goddess, I swear that when we get back to Lusia, I'm going to find the bitches who sold our route and flay them alive!" Commodore Chaix Skani swore, biotics flaring around her clenched fists as she studied the system map.

 ** _Codex: Asari Republic of Lusia, Unlocked_.**

"You don't think the same person sold us to the pirates and the Hegemony?" her sister and lieutenant Salia asked blandly, waving at the battle that was being waged around their convoy.

It galled Chaix to no end to have her flotilla of frigates hiding behind the bulk transports, but either of two other groups that had appeared in this uninhabited, pointless system outnumbered her forces three to one. Only fear of damaging their prizes kept them from firing on her. And what a set of prizes it was, a half dozen bulk transports, carrying almost a hundred thousand Asari colonists to their new home, outside Citadel space, where no one would give them any shit about being a bunch of creepy cultists who thought being purebloods was a good thing.

Despite their beliefs, Chaix had sworn to see them safe to their chosen destination, as a favor to Matriarch V'dova whose daughter had joined up with the cultists. She would honor that oath, as the Skani family always had. Though, a basic honesty forced her to admit, plenty of Skani had died failing to fulfill their oaths, but none had broken them (at least as far as she knew).

 ** _Codex: Skani & V'dova Familes, Unlocked._**

"Who cares if it was the same bitch? Can you get any more speed out of those fucking transports?" Chaix asked, glaring at the massive ships. They'd pushed the transports to the very edge of their range, in order to prevent anyone from predicting their route. They had to discharge their drive cores into a planet, or they'd fry every colonist onboard when they made the jump back to FTL and her own frigates weren't in much better shape. The pirates had jumped them at exactly the right time.

"No chance at all," her sister said cheerily.

Chaix glared at the display, trying to come up with some brilliant tactic to get them out of this situation. They'd fought well, leaving the debris of a quartet of pirate vessels behind for only some minor damage to two of her vessels, but those had been the foolish eager outliers of the pirate fleet, trying to loot and run before the main body had arrived. When that seething mass of ships had arrived, two of her ten ships had been destroyed outright and the remainder forced to shelter behind the transports. Only the arrival of the Hegemony patrol had prevented the defeat and capture of her flotilla. So far.

With her ships trapped in system for hours as they crawled towards the nearest planet at sublight speeds, the pirates had chosen to reform and face down the Batarians in a battle over the prize that could not escape. The Batarians were heavily outnumbered, but the dozen frigates they possessed were reinforced by a quartet of cruisers, giving them firepower that far exceeded any of the individual pirate ships.

Both sets of ships were designed around the same principle, crippling the enemy vessel, then boarding. GARDIAN systems were their main weapons, though the Batarians also had enough cannon to maintain the fiction that they were a navy, not a larger than usual pirate gang. The pirates suffered heavy casualties closing to point blank range, but once there, they swarmed the Batarian ships.

If the ships had been crewed by Asari, or Turians, the battle might have gone differently, but the Batarians lacked the discipline of trained soldiers, and their ships fragmented along family lines as captains moved to support their political allies, rather than the nearest ships and the draftee low-caste crew was busy looking for weapons to defend themselves, or to board an enemy ship (as that was one of the few opportunities for advancement and profit they had), rather than doing their actual jobs.

Still, the ramshackle nature of the pirate fleet and the Batarians heavier ships meant the battle hung in the balance, until a pack of pirate vessels managed to board one of the cruisers and turn its weapons on its fellows. The Batarian cruisers responded by abandoning attempts at boarding.

Hope rose in Chaix's heart. Maybe they'd wipe each other out, or at least reduce their strength sufficiently to let her handle them. Unfortunately, at that moment, as the Batarians withdrew, using their FTL drives to jump ahead, gaining the space they needed to bring their cannon to bear, Chaix saw more signals appear in the outer system, more pirates, who vanished back into FTL, then appeared in amongst the Batarians, continuing the assault (in fact, they'd appeared several minutes ago as it took time for the light of their arrival to reach the combatants, and had been intending to move into position to try to seize the prize while the other combatants were still fighting).

The Batarians had been trying to turn, leaving their main cannon out of alignment with any of the pirates. Their GARDIAN lasers instantly began to fire, but the prolonged engagement was damaging the weapons. Fortunately for the Batarians, the two fleets' momentum had them moving in different directions, so the window of engagement was brief before they raced away. That moment left nine pirate ships and three of the Batarian frigates destroyed and one of the cruisers a floating hulk.

"Matriarch Janula is on the comm for you," Salia said.

 ** _Codex: Janula Family, Unlocked._**

"Put her through," Chaix ordered, without looking over at the console.

"Commodore, your ships should withdraw. There is no longer any real chance of naval victory."

"I'm not abandoning you to the mercy of pirates," Chaix snapped, ignoring the truth of the matriarch's statement.

"We are not helpless. Your support is appreciated but not necessary." Chaix turned her head to glare at the ungrateful matriarch.

Janula had a large group of commandos under her command and though her ships were unarmed, the commandos weren't. The pirates would undoubtedly gas the ships, but the commandos' armor should protect them from that. Janula was probably planning to ambush the pirates when they tried to board. That depended on the pirates being very stupid, but that wasn't necessarily a bad bet. To prevent their plan from being revealed, the matriarch wasn't going to explain it over a comm channel, even one that was secured, as secured was always a relative term.

"I understand that, but I have my orders matriarch," Chaix said, voice bleak.

"I'm ordering you to leave. Your services are no longer required."

"I don't work for you, ma'am."

"Word needs to get back to Lusia, so they know they've got a traitor."

"If necessary, one of my ships will escape, but we are sworn to defend you and we will do so."

"I release you from your oaths," the Matriarch snapped.

"You don't hold my oath, pureblood," Chaix snapped.

Before Janula could muster indignation, or Chaix could muster enough courtesy to apologize, Salia interrupted, "New contacts."

Chaix looked back to the scanner display and saw new contacts appearing as a secondary relay flung them into the system. The ships were dropping in one-at-a-time, every six seconds, as they'd entered the relay singly to minimize relay drift. They came out impressively close together and spun to reform around the largest vessel, a kilometer long dreadnought. They didn't have quite the speed, or skill of a veteran Turian battlegroup, or one of the Elder Fleets, but it was better than most Salarian battle groups could have managed.

 ** _Codex: Relay Drift, Unlocked._ **

**_Codex: Elder Fleet, Unlocked._**

Chaix brought up closer scans of the incoming ships, though her system was already telling her that it didn't recognize their profile, or power emissions. A flick of a button switched her view over to the optical scanners and examined the ships. They lacked the inward turned curves of an Asari vessel, the shallow angles of a Turian warship, or the multi-lobed structure of Salarian ships. The newly arrived ships were almost boxlike, long rectangular ships dotted with laser turrets. The dreadnought possessed a quartet of spinal mounted mass effect cannons, as well as dozens of broadside mounted cannon. The ship was as heavily armed as any dreadnought in Citadel space. This appeared to be a new species, not getting the best introduction to civilization.

Of more immediate interest was the placement of the ships. It was possible dropping in between the pursuing pirates and the Asari ships was pure luck, but that was…unlikely. More likely was that a ship had carried word of the encounter back to this fleet, but they hadn't detected any such ship. It was rumored that the STG had paid the price to get working stealth technology on some of their ships, but these really weren't Salarian ships.

"Incoming signal," Salia said, as Chaix was boggling over how much worse her situation had gotten.

A symbol of five intricate gold chains coming together into a single golden star, all over a blue background filled the screen. "This is Flotilla Seven of Patrol Group Nine of the Combine Fleet. We have detected combat within the zone we are responsible for patrolling. Please explain." Unlike most communication, they did not choose to transmit their features, only the symbol of this Combine was visible and the voice provided no clues as to the speaker. It lacked the flanging of a Turian, or the depth of a Batarian, but it might well have been electronically modified to conceal the speaker's identity.

Chaix didn't say anything, while about half a dozen other folks talked over one another, responding to the message. The Matriarch Janula amongst them, as was the Batarian commander and several of the pirates. Chaix was considering the fact that this unknown flotilla, claiming to be part of some unknown polity, possibly even made up of members of an unknown species, were broadcasting on Citadel standard channels, in standard Asari.

"Members of the Polita Fleet, you claim your actions are justified as collection of tolls for passage through your space. However, you provided no services and this system has no improvements which they could have used. Your claim is invalid. Matriarch Janula, which world are you intending to colonize?"

After a moment, the matriarch provided the information.

"That system is at Stage Four of the Combine Colonization Process."

Chaix could hear the disappointment in Janula's voice as she agreed not to colonize the world, but when faced with a _patrol fleet_ lead by a _dreadnought_ , she didn't make an issue out of it.

"That is not required. Stage Four means that initial surveys have been done, but no improvements have been made. The Combine has no final claim on the world. If you wish to undertake the task of colonization, we will not interfere. Do you require an escort the rest of the way to your destination?"

"That would be appreciated," Janula said, less out of confidence in the Combine, whatever that was, then out of confidence in her own helplessness should they prove hostile. Instantly, most of the ships began to move into flanking position. Only the dreadnought remained, floating in space alone, between the fleets. The ship's firepower was immense, but that was…a surprising choice, given the prize a dreadnought represented to pirates.

"Hegemony flotilla, your demands for information regarding the Combine are denied. I have no authority to negotiate or provide information regarding my government or people."

Chaix finally spoke up, "Would it be possible to meet with persons who do have that authority?"

"Our new colony could provide neutral ground, if that would be useful," Janula put in, eager to increase its protection as she'd been forced to reveal its location (though since everyone had known where to intercept them, that might not have mattered much).

"Hold please," the faceless Combine spokesperson said. Thirty seconds passed. "That is acceptable. Are you qualified to speak on behalf of your government?"

"No, but we can have representatives to the colony in…" Chaix did the travel math in her head, added in dithering time for the Council, then doubled it, "twenty five days?"

"Acceptable. Representatives of the Combine will meet your representatives in twenty five Citadel standard days on Purasi." Matriarch Janula was good at many things. Naming things was not one of them.

Thus began another Race, even though the battle was not yet over.

 ** _Codex: Race, Unlocked._**

The battle did not resume as the pirates decided not to take the bait and attack a dreadnought, instead retreating as the Batarians scattered to spread word of 'their' new discovery, while Chaix sent all of her own frigates (except her own, as she would complete the task she'd sworn herself to) ahead to discharge their drive cores rather sooner than the fleet as a whole could and to scatter towards worlds with comms links to the Republics. It mattered less who in the Republics got the word than that someone besides the Hegemony knew about the agreement before the Batarians could do something stupid, violent, or both.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Rannoforming:_**

 _Rannoforming is something of a misnomer. Though many of the plants and animals used to transform worlds such as Europa into worlds where dextro-sapients like the Quarians could live easily were, indeed, from Rannoch (or the other Quarian worlds), the large majority were from Turian worlds, which had not suffered the devastation of the war with the Geth (though many had suffered other blights, not the least being colonization by the Turians, who were not the most environmentally friendly species in Citadel Space)._

 _Meld is used to create rannoforming or terraforming bacteria tailored to the planet being transformed. This does not resolve gravitational issues, requiring the host world to either have sufficient mass to hold onto an atmosphere, or the deployment of massive element zero generators, powered by equally massive elerium power plants to make the planet mass enough to hold onto its atmosphere. The latter approach has only ever been used on Europa. Even there it was only possible immediately after the war, with the decommissioning of much of the Migrant Fleet, the resources of the entire system pulling together, the discovery of the Prothean artifacts on Mars and extreme concern about expansion outside the Solar System. Europa was the showpiece of the newly established Combine, with most other Quarian expansion within the Solar System consisting of more traditional domes and space stations amongst the asteroid belt and the moons of the gas giants, keeping them in touch with their starfaring roots._

 _With the subsequent expansion of the Combine, many garden worlds have come under their control, however the Combine's need for heavy duty defenses in any inhabited system have inhibited expansion, often making it more feasible to change a planet's atmosphere and ecosystem than to convince the bureaucracy and the military to expand defenses to a new system and so rannoforming and terraforming remain major industries._

 ** _Codex: Observer Corps:_**

 _The Observer Corps is made up of those psionics who volunteered for military service, but whose psych-profiles indicated a desire for (or ability to withstand) long periods of time separated from any other organic life. This is a relatively common profile, especially amongst those with the power to read minds, but without the self-control to keep from reading the minds of everyone around them._

 _The Observer Corps soldiers are assigned to a specific system and deposited there in a specially designed stealth craft. The craft won't be able to maintain stealth if it has to travel, but otherwise it'll look like just another mineral rich asteroid. The array of stealth drones provides system-wide coverage with directional laser communications which are impossible to intercept unless they intercepting craft is physically between the drones and the stealth ship._

 _The Observer then uses a special Gollop Chamber to report back to Fleet Command in real time. This is the same technique used by the Fleet Psionics to coordinate Fleet maneuvers across multiple systems. In this manner, the Observer Corps is able to monitor large areas of space at a relatively minimal cost._

 ** _Codex: Asari Republic of Lusia:_**

 _Lusia was one of the early colonies of the Asari, shortly after they encountered the Salarians, Batarians, Volus, Elcor and Hanar. Asari culture, always wildly xenophilic rapidly developed to focus its sexual interest on aliens, both for cultural reasons and to avoid creating Ardat-Yakshi. The species-wide terror of the Asari regarding Ardat-Yakshi had survived into the modern age, despite the fact that modern technology would make it far more difficult for the Ardat-Yakshi to rule as they once did. Despite all that, the Ardat-Yakshi are the boogeymen of the Asari._

 _Most Asari were either in agreement with this shift in focus, or acquiesced to it. Those who did not were put under increasing pressure to conform and not 'endanger the Asari people and our place in the galaxy.' Some did, but many retreated to a new colony world, populated solely by Asari. For a time, this internal segregation worked well enough, but over the centuries, both due to immigration and the fact that most Asari were xenophiles_ and _the ongoing pressure to conform, the purebloods became a minority on Lusia. A relatively powerful and wealthy one as their families had been there since the founding of the colony, but nevertheless, a minority. This shift has created a certain degree of societal unrest, prompting a movement for further withdrawal from Asari society._

 ** _Codex: Skani & V'dova Families: _**

_The Skani family are warriors and have been since before the Asari took to space. They've been tied to the V'dova family for most of that time. The V'dova took to trade as early as the Skani took to fighting. They formed an almost symbiotic partnership, with the V'dova providing the ships the Skani wanted and the cargo to take them to foreign places, while the Skani protected that cargo from those who would steal it._

 _This partnership has continued to the present day, though the historic practice of sealing the alliance with a one-a-century wedding between the two families slowly drifted out of fashion as purebloods came to be looked down upon, the earlier millennia of intermarriage have rendered them in many minds a single tribal entity. To the Skani and V'dova themselves, there are two clear branches, which, though symbiotically linked, have their own internal rivalries and external loyalties._

 _As private navies are generally frowned upon within the Asari Republics, many of the Skani have taken up service to their Republic's military. Fortunately, the Republics are far more open to multiple loyalties than most militaries and the integration of the navy into the rest of society is such that V'dova ships are still escorted by Skani warships much of the time, simply because the Skani and V'dova request it._

 _Both families are powerful and well respected in their fields, with ties to the other major familial groups working the interstellar transport and combat fields. But for an outsider it's important to remember that these are families which are millennia old. You'd be better off thinking tribes, or minority ethnic/religious group than family to get a true scale of their numbers and influence._

 ** _Codex: Janula Family:_**

 _The Janula family is the core of the purebloods on Lusia. Originally priestesses of Athame, they took the view that just as the Goddess had Asari consorts, in the personages of her guides, so should modern Asari. The family maintains its attachment to the church and several Matriarchs Janula are currently high amongst the church hierarchy._

 _The family originally controlled several tracts of land on Thessia with significant Element Zero deposits. When they left, they used their connections to the Church to ensure that they got a fair deal on the sale (unlike many of their compatriots who were under such pressure to leave that they sold at far below market price). They re-invested that money in low risk industries, mostly resource extraction._

 _They have minority stakes in a large number of mining groups and ownership of an interstellar shipping company which moves those resources. It specializes in bulk transport within Citadel space, a very safe industry, though not one with high profit margins._

 ** _Codex: Relay Drift:_**

 _When traveling by mass effect relay, a ship will arrive in the right general area, but specificity at a range beyond thirty-thousand kilometers is impossible for any ship large enough to travel through a relay. That 'relay drift' increases as the mass of the traveler does. However, when ships pass through as a group, they maintain their relative position. This means that ships can come in where they intended to arrive, or come in in formation, but not both._

 _When position matters more than protection, fleets transition singly, but in tight sequence, then reform their formation. The speed with which this is done is one measure of the skill of a naval unit._

 ** _Codex: Elder Fleet:_**

 _The Asari military is generally a collection of quasi-tribal warriors. This works relatively well for ground forces, mostly due to their individual power and the fact that the Asari have the largest population of any known sapient species. However, it doesn't work for naval power at all, as no small group could fund the construction of even a frigate, let alone the larger ships needed. To solve this problem, the Asari Republics created the Elder Fleets. The ships were built by the Republics as a whole and crewed by specific families and clans. Though this practice has fallen out of favor, replaced with a more standard volunteer military, with ship construction funded by taxation, the surviving fleets are still active and have not been broken up._

 _They answer to the Republics as a whole, as the Republics own the ships (and, according to rumor have certain technological, or explosive safeguards in place). However, though they answer to the Republics and go to war only at the command of the Republics, they choose their own tactics and run themselves. The crews are all Asari and unlike most groups of Asari, only Matrons leave the fleets, to find partners and then they return when the children are born. This has produced some…arguments with other species over rights to the children in question, so they generally only search out mates in Asari space, where the law agrees with them, or Terminus space, where the Citadel doesn't care about local law._

 _Though their equipment tends to be old and rarely replaced, it is extremely well maintained and all their officers have centuries of experience. They've practiced and worked together for so long that their rapport is unmatched. During the Krogan rebellions most of the Elder Fleets were decimated, but they destroyed more than four times their number of Krogan ships. The few remaining Elder Fleets haven't been seen outside Asari space in the last five hundred years, prompting conspiracy theories and STG attention, neither of which have led anywhere._

 ** _Codex: The Race:_**

 _The Race has occurred several times through Citadel history. It occurs when a mixed group discovers a new species. After all, the glory doesn't go to the person who makes the discovery, but the first person to report it back and even more crucially, the first to get their own representatives back out. Most recently and famously, representatives of the Asari Republics and the Batarian Hegemony both encountered the Combine._

 _Both forces instantly scattered, heading for systems on the communications network, for densely populated core worlds of their respective governments, and the Citadel itself, all seeking to spread the message that it was they who made peaceful first contact with this new, unknown power._

 _As always, the Race prompted economic, social and political upheaval as everyone positioned themselves to take advantage of the new discovery. Massive military buildups began at relays leading to all points near the two identified locations of Combine interest, the system of the intended colony and the system where the battle took place._

 _Commentators flooded the airwaves with competing analyses about what their sigil, ship design and few communications revealed about the nature of the Combine. The fact that, as always, these all proved to be laughably incorrect did not prevent them from being the most viewed reports during the weeks between news of the new first contact breaking and actual information about the Combine being released._

 **Author's Note: After last chapter, I thought a little kitty was needed. Originally this and portions of the next two parts were a single chapter, but after some reviews commented on how much they wanted to see reactions and realizing that the chapter was 12000 words, I broke it into 3 parts and expanded it significantly. As always, reviews and comments are welcome.**


	9. Intermission Part 2: Meeting the Unknown

**Intermission Part 2: Meeting the Unknown**

 **Authors Note: This chapter is mostly world-building, but there's some information at both the start and the finish of the story that won't get repeated for a long time otherwise. Most of the world-building here is about the structure of the Combine. I want to emphasize that the Combine is not intended to be utopian, it's simply the sort of government I could see evolving out of the desires of two such disparate powers seeking some sort of stable alliance.**

 **Review responses: There was a question regarding the Rannoforming Codex entry, as to whether it meant that Combine forces were limited due to their expansion, or the expansion was limited due to the availability of Combine forces. Expansion has been limited to those systems which the Combine is certain it can defend. Usually, though not always, that includes major military facilities on the ground and in space, as well as a local fleet.**

 **There was a comment that the Quarians didn't tell anyone what they were up to. Indeed not. Since there's no group of 17 million people in the universe that can keep a secret, the Migrant Fleet initiated a no contact protocol and closed all external communication while it was debating, then tracked every ship extremely closely to make sure no one got 'left behind' and went off to sell the news of new peoples and technology to the highest bidder. A little more about how they've kept their new allegiance secret is discussed below.**

 **There was a comment suggesting using the psionic jammers to identify psionics. This is an excellent idea and one of the effects of static defenses. However it only identifies 'active' psionics. That is, those whose abilities are functional. The reasons for this are that until potential psionics are 'activated' they can't actually do anything psionic, including 'hear' at that frequency, otherwise we'd have had provable psionics around for all of Human history. Now, powerful inactive psionics have occasionally shown some signs that might be increased irritation at being within the jamming field, or might have been irritation at scientists who wouldn't leave their experiment well enough alone. As the modern Combine offers free psionic testing for all potentials and most take them up on it, this isn't usually an issue.**

 **There was a question regarding whether or not Ardat-Yakshi were Asari psionics. No comment at this time.**

 **Finally, a brief reminder, as I said in the preface to Chapter 3, this will not be a story where Humanity (and Quarianity) claim the Ethereal's technology, go forth into the galaxy and slap around the rest of the galaxy with their superior technology. There's a lot of stories like that and I enjoy most of them (especially those dealing with the Batarians), but it's not this story.**

 **Thanks for the reviews!**

"Commander, report," the Chair of the X-Com Committee ordered.

 ** _Codex: X-Com Committee, Unlocked._**

"You have full briefing packets, but, to summarize, first contact is generally proceeding in line with Scenario 27. The main distinction from that prediction is the surprisingly negative reaction of the Asari. We believe this to be the result of two factors, the communication decisions made by the Admiral and the unfortunate choice of target to protect. As we did not transmit any image of ourselves, the Asari generally are viewing us as secretive, though the young who make up the bulk of the population and the bulk of their military are more concerned with us potentially proving to unattractive, or worse, incompatible."

"Well, we know that's not bloody true," Member 7 grunted, fond memories making his voice wistful.

The Commander filed that away, the members of the Committee were supposed to be anonymous, but that didn't keep her from wanting to know who they were. Not for any improper reason, of course, just so she could properly…tailor her arguments to her audience to ensure they took the correct course of action. The fact that Member 7 appeared to have had intimate contact with an Asari radically reduced the number of people he might be.

Member 9 spoke up, she was obviously Margaret Steele, the newscaster, as she didn't bother attempting to conceal her famous voice, "That will get sorted out once we meet with them. What we're here to discuss is how fleets of Asari and Batarians and _pirates_ made it into Combine space without any warning at all from the agency responsible for our external security."

"The Batarians and pirates followed the Asari. We did not know about the business with the Asari because they went to a lot of trouble to keep it secret."

"The fact that a colony far from our borders was able to send out a convoy without us knowing doesn't concern me," Member 1 said. "What does—"

"We did know about it, sir. We just didn't know where they were going," the Commander interjected, unwisely.

"And you didn't know a _pirate fleet_ was moving into our space? I can believe the Asari kept their secrets. I can even believe the Batarians did, they wouldn't have to tell anyone but the commander of that fleet, but the pirates? There's no way to get three pirate ships to go _anywhere_ without their captains knowing. That was dozens of people in the know," Member 1s voice was acid. As the longest serving Member (everyone's number changed every three months, when one of the sixteen members of the Committee retired) Member 1 had sat through almost a hundred meetings with the Commander and wasn't about to be talked over.

"The vast majority of the pirate fleet was made up of a single gang, the Black Varren," the Commander explained, stretching the meaning of 'vast majority' to the breaking point. "The remainder were hangers-on who followed without knowing anything except that there might be gleanings for them to pick over. However, you are correct. We should have known. One of our officers did know and made every effort to get word back to us. Unfortunately, his ship suffered an engine failure and he was unable to reach the Observer in time for word to get back to us. Bad luck."

"You're meant to be bad luck for our enemies," Member 16 muttered over the click of prayer beads in a calm, computer generated voice.

"Yes and we will be, if they prove to be our enemies. However, the Parliament has voted to meet with them," the Commander's voice tightened, "despite the Admiral overstepping his authority, and has expressly stated that X-Com is not to interfere."

"Of course. Half the damn Combine wants trade opened with Citadel Space, the other half just wants to fuck Asari," Member 12 snapped.

The Commander didn't have a response to that. Before she was required to come up with one, the door to the communication's chamber opened, letting in her aide. That was unusual. The panic in the man's eyes was even more unusual. The Central Officer had served two decades as an X-Com field operative and another three as the Commander's primary aide, hers and her two predecessors. Nothing worried him. With a quick apology, she asked to be dismissed. The Chair granted that and she left the room to discover what was wrong.

"What's all that then?" Member 15 asked.

"Either an actual problem, or the Commander making an excuse to duck our questions, again," Member 1 said, heaving a heavy sigh.

"Not like we're short on actual problems. What the fuck was the Admiral thinking?" Member 2 asked, sibilant esses elongating her words slightly, despite the best efforts of the translators.

"That we weren't going to let a hundred thousand Asari get massacred on our doorstep? Even if they don't like to have sex with aliens?" Member 7 asked, launching a dig at Member 12, and himself.

"And he didn't reveal any of our tech advantages," Member 3 put in, unexpectedly, as the man almost never spoke during Committee meetings (or outside them for all the other Members knew, as none of them knew one another, or ever met in person).

"No, but the meeting will do that," Member 2 countered.

"We do not need to replay the debate that took place on every colony and every channel last week. This is properly the responsibility of the Combine Parliament and they've made their decision," Member 1 said. Before any of the others could respond, he spoke to the Chair. "Unless there's other business, I believe this meeting is concluded."

"Indeed. Until the Commander can return, schedules a new session, or the next standing session, whichever is earlier, this Committee stands in recess."

 **XXXXX**

Chaix fidgeted. In her century of service to the Republic of Lusia, she'd worn the dress uniform of the Asari Republics exactly once before, when she'd briefly served on the Destiny Ascension and the ship had been inspected by the Council. But she was here, over her strong objections, as a representative of the Republics as a whole. Despite her arguments that she didn't know anything and that her, calmer, sister would be more useful, she'd still been assigned to the contact team.

The Council thought it was a reward and her own family pleased by it, but she'd rather be back on Lusia working to get her flotilla repaired. On the other hand, the trip out had been educational. The Council had put together a fleet larger than any Chaix had ever seen to act as backup, holding position at the nearest omni-directional relay, while the single ship bearing the ambassadors went in. If she'd been allowed to stay back there and poke around, talking to officers of all the various powers which had contributed ships and comparing systems, tactics and training, that would have been a good use of her time. But here, she was simply window-dressing and she was bored.

Well, not at that exact moment, as they were finally in the prefabbed building, with the Combine envoys' shuttle inbound, no more than a minute out, but she'd been bored for a very long time. The Council had decided on a display of unity, so there was a representative from each of the Citadel species and nations present, though the Council nations each had a number of other representatives, with Turian guards and military attaches, Asari for diplomatic matters and Salarians for scientific ones. Of the other groups, only the Volus had two representatives, one to represent the Banking Committee and one representing the Volus themselves.

 ** _Codex: Banking Committee, Unlocked._**

The Combine shuttle touched down and Chaix examined it on the cameras (only guards were outside the large cubical prefabbed structure). Supposedly having the envoys come to them would create a psychological advantage, making them feel like supplicants, that seemed stupid to her, but the Council was looking for any advantage to counter the obvious knowledge the Combine possessed about them and their complete dearth of knowledge regarding the Combine. The shuttle was a sleek personnel shuttle, with heavy armor, unarmed, but with the ease of motion that suggested an over-sized Eezo core (and therefore probably, overpowered shields). It was the only Combine ship in the system and far too small to hold a large force. The envoys were clearly to be sacrificed if the Council betrayed them.

It landed easily, and a ramp dropped, revealing a darkened interior. "Guards coming out," was broadcast over an open channel. Sure enough five figures slid from the darkness, each cradling a heavy weapon. Most were swaddled in full armor, making it difficult to tell much about them, but three of them seemed unsurprising. A bipedal combat mech of some sort and a pair of bipeds, one looked almost like a Drell male, the other looked like a Quarian female. But those passed almost without comment as all eyes were drawn, not to the floating disc of metal (perhaps some sort of weapons platform or surveillance drone), but to the massive snake-like creature which dwarfed its fellow guards.

Armor plate covered its chest and other portions of its body, though its sinuous, graceful movement required lighter armor along much of its length to permit its movement. The armor was the equivalent of that at an Asari's shoulder or elbow, without the ability to put pauldrons over the softer material. This was probably countered by the sheer size of the shield generators a creature that size could carry. She'd seen how effective the Elcor could be and this creature was obviously a _lot_ faster than the walking tanks.

"Goddess…" someone whispered into an open comm channel.

"Comm discipline," a harsh Turian voice snapped. The C-Sec squad which the Council had provided was about the same size as the squad escorting the Combine envoys, but the Hierarchy had insisted upon providing a full platoon of the Primarch's Guards.

 ** _Codex: Primarch's Guards, Unlocked._**

The Combine guards spread out, keeping their weapons safely holstered, but they examined the area carefully and various scans were detected. After two minutes, another message was broadcast over the open channel, "Envoys coming out."

This time they came out one at a time and there were six of them. More surprisingly this time, the giant snake-alien was not the most interesting member of the group. Nor were the dark-skinned, hairy quasi-Asari, the tan-fleshed, scaleless quasi-Drell, the mech, or even the bizarre mass of floating, swirling red dust, but rather the grey-skinned, three fingered, bow-legged, UNSUITED Quarian.

At least it was the most surprising amongst the few Asari in the group old enough to recognize a Quarian when they saw one without her suit on (though, to be fair, she was, in fact, wearing an extremely expensive, and tight, business suit). She had the slightly larger, bright eyes and dark hair that were standard for Quarians and moved with an easy step which suggested that despite her age (visible in the tightness of her skin over the denser-than-average Quarian bones) she was in good condition.

Mutters ran through the hall as those Asari old enough to recognize a Quarian explained the situation to their fellows. Chaix did not fall in that select group, but her mother had bonded with a Quarian before the Geth Revolt and had kept holos of him.

The quasi-Asari stopped in front of the long table and took up a species of parade rest while the guards hung back. "My name is Marsha Sanders, I am a female Human. I am the Minister of Law and here as the elected representative of the Combine. As you can tell from the presence of Kinor'Zorah Nar'Titan, we are well aware of Citadel Space, its peoples and its laws. I propose that we introduce ourselves, provide some basic information about ourselves, then provide some information about the Combine and explain our proposal now, then we can take a break for you to consider the proposal we will make and ask questions. Does that seem reasonable to you?"

Matriarch Lan'Asi, as senior delegate rose. "That is certainly acceptable, please feel free to take a seat and enjoy the refreshments. We have dextro- and levo- options," she waved at the various snacks that lined the table.

"Thank you, perhaps during the break," Marsha said and waved a hand at the Quarian to her left.

"I am, as you have heard, Kinor'Zorah Nar'Titan, a female Quarian, appointed representative of the Combine. Before this post, I was Assistant War Minister, in charge of naval development."

The snake-creature spoke next. "I am Timor-Linar, a mated Viper, Speaker for Venus and appointed representative of the Combine."

The mist creature spoke, which surprised the group somewhat. "We," and its voice was indeed a chorus of voices, "are Is'ha'pi'va'av'ko'ln've'ro'pp'ba'bo'qi," each of those syllables was spoken by a single voice which came back together after introducing themselves, "the Person known as Builder, we are made up of thirteen Silicoids. We are appointed representatives of the Combine. Prior to this task, we were Assistant Construction Minister, in charge of Zero Gravity Infrastructure Development."

The mech spoke next, "This unit is a terminal of the Geth-Unity, assigned to provide information regarding the Geth-Unity and the Combine."

Chaos exploded as guards sprinted inside and envoys fell back, summoning biotics and activating hidden defenses (as the Citadel's envoys were very definitely not expendable, the pre-fabbed building had been extensively modified before the Combine's arrival).

Only the fact that none of the Combine representatives or guards even moved prevented it from turning into a bloodbath. After an embarrassingly large amount of shouting that accomplished nothing, a moment of silence broke out. The quasi-drell had waited patiently for the hubbub to die down, then he finally spoke, "I am Ramtane Lamamra, a male human, support staff to the representatives, assigned from the Psi Corps."

Matriarch Lan'Asi rose, having not gotten involved in the panicking mass of diplomats and soldiers and spoke. "Thank you for those kind introductions. I assume the presence of the Geth is the reason for your reticence to contact the Citadel?" she asked. The other Asari in the delegation took their cue from her and began to relax, shooing away guards and herding envoys back to their seats.

"One of them. Yes. Perhaps we should explain before continuing the introductions," Marsha said.

The matriarch gave a gentle, deliberately warm and inviting, smile. "That would be helpful."

"A brief history of the Combine then, if you please, Kinor."

"Of course," the Quarian agreed. "Approximately a hundred years ago, the homeworld of the Humans was attacked by a race known as the Ethereals. They had a number of slave species they had conquered. Like the Migrant Fleet, they held no worlds. Unlike the Migrant Fleet, they were conquerors and pillagers."

There was a noise from one of the representatives, but it wasn't clear who made it.

"A flotilla of the Fleet arrived and allied itself with the Humans. They held off the early forces of the Ethereals. Using a substance the enemy brought, known as Meld, the allies were able to relieve the Quarians of the need for suits and together they were able to reverse engineer much of the alien technology before the full forces of both sides arrived. The Ethereals had committed themselves to battle, but found themselves outnumbered and overwhelmed. They fought to the last. With their fall, the species under their control reacted…differently. The Mutons and Chryssalids went mad, murdering until they were destroyed. The Sectoids went catatonic. The Floaters committed mass suicide. The Vipers and Silicoids regained their independence and joined with us. Those four species formed the Combine."

"Get to the part where there are Geth here!" General Loryn snapped from the cluster of Turians at the end of the table.

"For approximately thirty years, the Combine expanded slowly. There were few relays with both ends explored, and few omni-directional relays in close proximity to our space. Moreover, we'd suffered many casualties during our war and had no desire to run into another one." There was a certain sympathy for that around the table. "Eventually, however, a route was discovered which led around inhabited space to the Perseus Veil and Rannoch. Young idiots looked at all the Combine had built and discovered and decided that they would go and see the Geth for themselves. They went and were promptly captured. However, what the Geth discovered in their databanks would split their consensus into four factions, the Geth-Isolationist, the Geth-Genocidal, the Geth-Slaver, and the Geth-Unity," she nodded to the terminal who had caused such consternation.

"And what did they discover?" Lan'asi asked.

"The same thing which permitted the Ethereals to control five other species, the existence of psionic abilities."

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure the translators are working properly, that came across as telepathic abilities," Lan'asi said, well-bred skepticism carefully controlled, but audible in her voice.

"Psionics are far broader than that, but for the purposes of the Geth reaction, the crucial point is that psionics are necessary to create Elerium, the main power source used by the Combine and crucial to various forms of weaponry and technology. Including the handheld energy weapons carried by our guards," Kinor said, provoking another firestorm throughout the room and effectively, if temporarily distracting everyone from the question of the Geth and psionics.

Marsha attempted to restore order, but her voice was lost in the throng. General Loryn's hand moved and every Turian in the room snapped to attention, loudly, almost drawing an unfortunate reaction from the Combine's hair-triggered and very nervous guards.

"Prove it," Administrator Okon Teniki, representative of the Salarian Union said, breaking the tense silence of lowered weapons.

"Which claim do you desire proof for?" the Builder asked.

"Handheld energy weapons," Okon said, turning to one of his aides who, after receiving an order, somewhat sourly took off his overcoat to reveal STG model body-armor and slid off his chest plate. Okon grabbed it, "A target for," he raised a hand and pointed at the Viper guard, as it was carrying the largest weapon, "you."

He flicked it into the air and the Viper moved fast as lightning, weapon rising to unleash a blast of ravenous energy, visible to the naked eye as a red streak through the air. It didn't impart much in the way of kinetic energy to the armor, but the thermal energy impact was horrific. It came down towards his waiting hand and Okon had to jerk back out of the way as the metal plate was superheated to the point of glowing. The heated metal deformed as it melted its way into the table. There was a clearly visible four-inch-diameter hole clean through the dead center of the armor plate.

Despite the shot, there was almost no tension in the air, as the guards were as shocked as the representatives by what they'd just seen.

"I think a demonstration of psionic abilities should wait until the situation is somewhat calmer," Marsha said, though the words were obviously an order and the Psi Corps representative nodded his obedience. "The rest of our history is fairly simple, consisting of an ongoing conflict with the Geth-Genocidal and Geth-Slaver factions, while the Geth-Unity joined the Combine. There was a certain amount of social stress over that, but nothing makes allies faster than having the same enemies. The conflict has been expensive, but mostly low intensity after the destruction of the main servers and construction yards in the Perseus Veil. Besides that, our history is mostly one of slow, careful expansion and colonization I suggest we take a break now, to let everyone consider their position and let some smaller conversations occur. Any of us, including the guards will be happy to answer any questions you may have."

"An excellent idea," Lan'asi said, a sharp gesture scattering her aides to converse with the Combine personnel, while she, General Loryn and Administrator Okon retreated to an inner private room to discuss.

 **XXXXX**

The group broke apart into swirling fragments of conversation as various groups approached those they were most interested in, with the exception of the Psi Corps soldier who was conspicuously avoided by everyone else (except, as had to be expected, one curious Salarian) as if a ten foot bubble could keep him from reaching their minds _._

Chaix frankly didn't really want to speak to any of them, not particularly caring about small arms. The two she'd have been interested in speaking to, Kinor and the Builder (ridiculous name, but better than a collection of thirteen syllables), were swamped but if she didn't speak to at least one of the aliens and bring back a report, then her family would never let her hear the end of it.

The least surrounded of the aliens was the floating disc. Chaix wasn't even sure if it was actually a sapient alien and not a piece of equipment, but she was willing to risk a bit of embarrassment rather than try to fight her way through the throng of people surrounding the others and peppering them with questions. Well, except for the single Elcor, who had forced his way through the throng to Builder and was ponderously peppering (to the extent that was possible) him…her…(no, it had referred to itself as we, which made 'them' the proper pronoun) them with questions.

"I'm afraid you were not introduced," she said to the disc as courteously as she could manage to something that looked like one of the floating boards her nieces played with.

"You may refer to us as the Admiral," the disc replied, unfolding, unfurling and opening as metal parted to reveal more metal and a set of weapons that were as large as the one the Viper hefted. That drew a few eyes, but no feet beat their way towards Chaix to rescue her. Its voice was that of a choir whispering almost in unison.

She blinked once, then continued as if she hadn't just seen the impossible happen. "Isn't that a bit confusing?"

"No. We are the only Silicoid to reach the rank of admiral. Should more do so while we are still stable we will choose a new name for our Person."

"Ah." Two questions occurred to her. Most Asari would have asked the first, about what this 'remain stable' business was all about. She was not most Asari. "And why is an admiral playing ground protection detail to ambassadors?"

"We commanded Flotilla Seven of Patrol Group Nine during its encounter with the Council. We are here to be one of the casualties if you choose to betray us."

"Oh." Chaix paused for a moment, then rallied. "If I may ask, why did you assign all your escort craft vessels to protect our fleet, while leaving your dreadnought behind between us and the Batarians and pirates?"

There was a momentary whirring, almost like a conversation happening just out of earshot. "We were attempting to induce them into attempting a boarding action."

"Why?"

"Standing Fleet Order 32 makes capture or salvage of element zero cores a secondary priority in all fleet engagements. If they had boarded us, we would have captured them."

"You're that certain in the superiority of your forces?"

The whirring whisper was louder this time and lasted for almost ten seconds, then the Admiral spoke. "All dreadnoughts are built around spinal mounts, but then specialized somewhat. The Salarian Union prioritizes additional engine power permitting them to reach the fight faster or escape faster; the Hierarchy prioritize additional armor and firepower permitting them to fight longer; the Asari Republics prioritize living space and additional shuttle capacity permitting them to act as ambassadorial vessels. Our dreadnoughts carry a division of soldiers and landing equipment."

"A division is?"

"Ten thousand soldiers."

"Ah."

"This information is not classified. And is amongst the information you will get access to, if this matter is resolved peacefully."

"I see." Stuck for a moment without a question, she asked the other question she'd thought of originally about this stability business.

"As you can imagine, having seen the Builder, we do not reproduce as you do."

She glanced towards the sparkling cloud of red that was speaking with the Elcor. "I wouldn't think so."

"We originated on a world with very low density, but a surprisingly high amount of iron and silicon on the surface. Without appendages, we manipulated the world through a natural talent for controlling electromagnetism, as the iron…infected everything on the surface. This enables us to…construct additional Silicoids, which are integrated into our gestalt personality. If faced with something which induces an irreconcilable difference, we split into two beings. Alternatively, after constructing enough Silicoids, we will become unstable. In our recorded history, only three Persons have been able to remain stable with more than eighteen Silicoids." She could hear the capitalization on 'Person'.

"Oh. I see. Um…can I ask, does that mean you can essentially reproduce exponentially? Splitting down to individuals, then constructing a second, then splitting and repeating?" That would have real strategic implications, as she recalled the Krogan Rebellions.

"We could. However, the process of construction is not easy, or fast, for a single Silicoid. When our numbers were few after the Liberation, we spent some time doing the math. It worked out to constructing to ten, then splitting to five was the most time efficient. However, the construct knows only what the constructers teach it and teaching nothing but construction is…not desirable."

"I see. I hope I haven't offended you, I'm not sure of your taboos, or culture."

"Of course not. Breeding is a topic of some delicacy amongst most species, especially the Vipers, but not us. We will warn you that you may wish to be careful asking about our past or culture when dealing with other Silicoids."

She considered that, then realized all the ways trying to figure it out herself could go wrong and just asked why.

"Because we didn't have one. The Ethereals stole much from us. What culture we have is either newly created, borrowed from one of the other species, or sifted out of what fragments we can find in the Ethereal records. Even our name as a species, 'Silicoids' is new and based on the fact that we are silicon based. It was originally going to be a temporary designation until we found our true name in the Ethereal records, but they didn't consider it worth recording."

"Ah. I'm sorry, but isn't that true for the Vipers as well?"

"Yes. And there are some issues there as well. However, they do not imagine they _should_ know all of their history. In the normal course of events, we would expect to. Though we are far from immortal, living only a few centuries longer than Humans, our means of reproduction and infallible memory would usually mean that there would be an unbroken chain going back to the beginning of our history, as construct learned from constructor. We should simply be able to ask one another and _know_ , but we cannot it…itches at us, we believe is the best description," despite the descriptor, Chaix was sure she could hear fury behind it and decided to shift the conversation back to the, amusingly less fraught, ground of reproduction.

"Ah. Can I ask, besides splitting can you exchange Silicoids? Could you share your experience with…I'm sorry, I don't know how many individual Silicoids are in your," she tried to match the Admiral's pronunciation, "Person."

"Seventeen. And yes, one of us could leave to join another Person. We could even disperse amongst many others, if it was necessary. It is less common than you might think, as any new Silicoid can destabilize a Person, though a new construct is very unlikely to do so, unless a Person is reaching its natural limits, a Silicoid with established experiences, personality and habits is often not so…accommodating."

"But, in times of war, you could create seventeen Silicoid admirals, if needed."

"We could share the knowledge and experience each Silicoid has gained while part of us. But the whole is greater than the parts and dispersed like that, we would become seventeen different Persons with our memories and personality, but they would be only a part of the whole. Even if the rest could be convinced…well, as a Person, our advantage is that we are our own staff. Seventeen minds working on every problem. Would you make your staff up of a dozen randomly chosen civilians and then expect the commander to do well?"

"Well, what about just leaving the individual Silicoids as individuals, could that work?" Chaix pushed, though that wasn't her intent.

"Temporarily. Silicoids as individuals can survive and are sapient. Some even manage to exist in that fashion for a time. Most rapidly go insane. Without others in the gestalt with us, we do not…do well."

"Well, okay, then what about matching the single Silicoid with one, or a couple of the newly constructed? That way they could guide them to grow—" she couldn't really read body language through metal plate, but she could feel it when a silence went from interested to frozen. "I apologize if I have insulted you, I did not intend to."

For the first time, only one voice spoke in response to her, old, tired, but with a core of molten steel. "That was done. Once. By monsters. I commanded the forces that destroyed their would-be rebellion. I caught them as they tried to disperse and flee. To carry their heresy and madness to others. To turn the next generation from constructs into copies. To freeze us all in their image. I killed them all. No. That will not be done. That is the law."

 ** _Codex: Perfection Heresy, Unlocked._**

"I apologize."

"You did not know," the voices were back and speaking in harmony, though the tones were somewhat dissonant, some were furious, others calm or resigned, despairing, even.

"Nevertheless. I apologize."

The silence stretched for a moment and Chaix had to control the urge to twitch, or say something further. Instinct was screaming at her that she was in danger, but she didn't know enough to know which way to jump. So she waited.

The moment passed, "Accepted," the Admiral said.

 **XXXXX**

Aedinia Surrius dodged through the crowd of Asari surrounding the 'mated' Viper, as they sought to pry out exactly what that meant, given that the alien had provided it in the place of the gender provided by the Quarian and Human. Their interest in another, apparently mono-gendered race was doubtless focused on how, or who, could bed one first.

The Turian Spectre did not care about any of that. She did care about the weapon the other, unintroduced, Viper was carrying. With the observation and espionage equipment which covered her body, just getting close would let her get good scans of the thing.

Still, she needed some excuse and introduced herself, well, her cover identity, to the Viper. The woman returned the favor. Apparently she was Sergeant Pino of the 501st Division. A few questions and the sergeant happily chattered about her division's glorious history of battle against the Geth-Genocidal and Geth-Slaver and her own family's history with the 501st. Apparently, her parent and three of her parent's 'clutchmates' had all served with distinction in the unit and she was carrying on a family and clan tradition of military service.

At least she was doing so for the moment. Her clan was in negotiations over her marriage to a male Viper who was an instructor in ground tactics at the Venus NCO Academy. After their marriage they would need to decide what path to follow, but she'd known the male at the academy and was certain that their merged self would want to remain in the field. He'd have been in the field himself, if not for the naturally frail state of Viper males.

Despite herself, Aedinia found herself asking about this 'merged self' business and discovered that when Vipers mated, they did so for life. Quite literally, as the male's body was entirely subsumed within the female's and their minds merged to form a single, new entity, capable of laying and fertilizing eggs in large numbers without any external involvement (except bringing the mated Viper quite a lot of food).

"Better not tell the Asari maidens that. If they discover that every time they go to bed with a mated Viper, they're having a threesome, they won't be able to get anything done just thinking about it," Aedinia put in.

That required its own explanation of Asari culture, well, Asari _maiden_ culture, as Pino knew nothing about the Council or its members. That led to the obvious question of why the sergeant had been chosen.

Pino was apparently a decorated combat veteran of several encounters with the Geth-Slaver (as the Geth-Genocidal didn't usually bother landing troops) and despite herself, Aedinia found herself drawn into a discussion of Geth and anti-Geth tactics for the rest of the break.

 **XXXXX**

Mihal Zuben went up to the Psi Corps member. He was not entirely happy about this. There was no evidence for any form of extra-sensory perception, with the exception of the Asari melding process and that was (he'd heard) not exactly something you could fail to notice was occuring. Nor was it entirely accurate (as he knew from reading the literature), in many cases the Asari mistook fantasy, dream, or hope, for reality, as well as only getting some minor fragments of what was on the surface of the mind. It wasn't really anything like the suggestion that this man might be able to lift information from his mind without him even knowing.

Disquieting for anyone. Disastrous for a STG operator.

But he was dead certain that every Salarian on the expedition, with the possible exception of Okon, the ambassador, was a member of the Special Task Groups. And Mihal would not have bet a single credit that Okon wasn't a retired member himself.

That left Mihal to make the approach, as he was the most junior member, as best they'd been able to tell (they'd all been sent by different groups). Like all the others, he was a trained scientist, but unlike all the others, he hadn't ever actually been in the field. He was an expert in power systems technology and infrastructure design. He did some consulting for the STG on how to disable the power infrastructure of worlds, ships and stations. In turn, they trained him, gave him and his clutch status and gave him money.

Nothing that was pried from his mind could damage intra Council relations, or threaten STG operations. So he was the one who got to go make small talk with the alleged telepath of the crazy, laser-totting aliens.

The Human was a head taller than the Salarian, and Mihal politely tipped his head back so he was looking at the psionic (his large eyes had sufficient peripheral vision to let him see the man's face even without looking up, but experience with Asari and Turians had taught him that they wanted to be looked in the eye).

"You are Ramtane Lamamra, yes? You say you are a psionic, yes?" Mihal didn't wait for the Human to respond, as he was quite certain of who the Human was, despite the difficulty of inter-species identification. "I have questions about the physics and mechanics of this alleged ability. You will answer them, yes?"

"I doubt I can. I am not a theoretician, or a scientist. I'm a Tier 5 psionic, but I spend most of my time creating elerium."

"How are you ranked? What does Tier 5 mean?" Mihal asked, though he really wanted to ask about this elerium element, which let them produce the power to permit handheld laser weaponry to be feasible. He wouldn't ask until the person he was speaking with was more relaxed.

"Psionics are relatively uncommon and strength isn't easy to measure in any useful way, but we can tell who is stronger than who if we measure directly against one another. Tiers are based on relative strength in relation to the portion of the population which possesses the abilities. It is based off our base ten number system. Tiers One to Three aren't even measurable, they can't do anything. Tier 4 are one in ten thousand, but can't do much more than maybe sense, or create a bit of emotional reaction in someone they're in physical contact with. Tier 5 means I'm one in a hundred thousand and the lowest Tier which can create elerium, or engage in anything beyond minimal empathy."

"Only one in a ten thousand has any real psionic gift, yes?" he asked, confirming he'd converted the psionic's mathematical confusion into actual numbers. His mind also noticed that despite the presence of impressive soldiers and politicians, the psionic they'd brought was about the weakest one who could be expected to do anything visible. What they were willing to sacrifice and what they weren't was good information to have.

"For Humans. Quarians it's even rarer, but they don't usually come in Tiers below seven, when compared to the Human population at least. There's still not enough Quarians for their numbers to work out right for that. I know at least a dozen Quarian psionics and Tier Seven makes them one in ten million. Silicoids don't have any at all, their minds don't work that way and they don't have much in the way of defenses individually, but their gestalt personalities are a fu—" he cut what had to be a curse short and converted it to, "nightmare to try to navigate. Vipers as individuals have a bit of power, not enough to do anything except integrate their partners to form a new single personality and mated Vipers have no psionic abilities at all. Of course, the Geth have no psionic abilities either. That's basic Psi Corps background. You want more than that, you'll need to talk to a specialist."

"But you would be the man to ask about this elerium and its creation, yes?"

"Sure. Usually psionics can't touch any matter at all, just the mind, but the base elements of elerium are complicated and have to undergo an expensive treatment process, with that done, all it takes is starting the reaction within the element. It's conceptually simple, but difficult, because if you screw it up, it'll pull your mind in, or set it on fire. That's why it pays so well," Ramtane said, a broad smile flashing over his face, revealing blunt white teeth, which said 'omnivore' to some part of Mihal's backbrain, not setting off alarms like a Vorcha's pointed ones.

"What are these elements and treatments?" Mihal asked, controlling his body language to hide his excitement, but he didn't manage to maintain his usual verbal tic.

"Oh, I have no idea, but I know they're expensive and radioactive, because the folks who bring them into the activation chamber whine like you would not believe about moving them."

"Okay," Mihal's disappointment was genuine and visible, but he turned back to the topic, "So, they say you are psionic. That means telepathic, yes?"

"Some are, I never got any good at that. Few Tier Fives do. I went through self-defense training and can induce panic, or help someone calm down. Beyond that…not in my skill set. I think some can, but I don't have any experience with higher level psionics beyond the occasional introduction, or instructing them if they want to work in elerium production. So, I don't really know how much of what it's said they can do is real and how much is Hollywood bullshit."

That derailed them into a conversation of what exactly Hollywood was and then Combine popular culture, which was bizarre to a Salarian (or to any species lacking a sex drive, as the Silicoids complained, often).

 **XXXXX**

Throughout the break the refreshments went untouched as everyone was too busy either asking, or answering, questions to be allowed to do something as minor as eat. When the main representatives returned, they called the meeting to order. "We've heard a great deal about your technology and history. I'd like to know more about your government," Okon said, mostly to see how open they'd be, rather than because he actually cared at this moment about their governmental structure, though it would affect how easily the STG could steal this new tech.

Marsha nodded and handled this question herself. "The Combine is a supra-national federal state. It was created by the Combine Treaty signed by the Migrant Fleet and most of the nations of Earth, homeworld of Humans," she glossed for her audience. "It has since been ratified by the remaining holdout nations of Earth, the Geth-Unity and representatives of the Vipers and Silicoids."

"The Combine Treaty guarantees a handful of rights to all citizens, provides external security and ensures free trade within the Combine. The laws necessary to carry out those functions are created by the Combine Parliament, a unicameral legislative body with representatives from all colonies, elected representatives whose number is based on population, except that every colony with more than fifty-thousand residents is also guaranteed a Speaker elected at large by the entire population of the colony. The Speakers may vote in the Parliament, but their main power is that they determine whether or not any law falls within the scope of the Treaty."

"The Combine Fleet, Trade Organization and Enforcement Division, as well as the Parliament are all paid for by the Combine's monopoly on Meld, Elerium, government psionics and a 5% tax of each colony's governmental income. The elected leader of the Parliament serves as the head of the military, as well as all other divisions of the Combine."

"All Speakers and members of Parliament serve five year terms, but may be re-elected indefinitely. The exception to this rule is the leader of the Parliament, who serves a seven year term, but then must resign and is forever barred from elected office in the Combine."

"This structure was based on a combination of Human and Quarian governmental structures without the—"

Kinor coughed loudly. When that didn't stop the Minister of Law from her lecture on the origin and design of the Combine government, she 'accidentally' stepped on the other woman's foot.

"Ah, and that's the basics," she said, after realizing her audiences eyes were beginning to glaze over.

"Thank you," Okon said, opening his hands to his fellows.

Matriarch Lan'asi asked the next question. "What are some of the current political disputes in the Combine?"

Marsha gestured Timor-Linar forward. The Speaker of Venus took center stage. "Well, there are various long running disputes about taxes, spending and fleet deployment. There's the new Patros Biochemical scandal, where the executives were caught conducting Quarian testing. But the big issue at the moment is the most recent round of disputes over Meld availability."

"Meld?" Lan'asi asked.

"Meld is a substance which permits genetic manipulation at a level far beyond that otherwise possible."

"Yes, you mentioned, but what's the Meld availability dispute?"

"Though Meld can be recycled with a high degree of efficiency from the corpse of a user, there's only one way to create it. Nano-dissolution of the body of a psionic."

There was a moment of silence as everyone considered that. More than a few faces blanched at the image.

"No one is required to do so, however most psionics do sell the right to transform their corpses into Meld, in exchange for a very large amount of money. However, supplies are still extremely limited. Fortunately, the Meld changes made to the Quarian population to permit them to exist without needing suits and to the Viper population to return us to our natural forms, after Ethereal manipulation, have bred true, limiting the need somewhat. However, demand far outstrips supply."

"Under the Treaty, everyone is entitled to sufficient Meld to repair any genetic defect which effects their life, assuming they agree to have it…reclaimed from their body after death. However, besides that, Meld is used to treat combat injuries and provide some…improvements to combat personnel which don't breed true. Besides that, the remainder is auctioned off to raise funds for the Combine, usually. There are always exceptions in the case of certain political events, or disasters, when the Parliament chooses to get involved. But the usual practice is auctioning it off. This has always been…problematic. Rich boy buys Meld and uses it to turn his eyes violet, while poor boy doesn't get Meld after an industrial accident and remains blind. Things like that."

"The last crisis was that jackass on New Beijing who decided to spend a fortune turning a couple of alligators into a breeding pair of dragons. Now the whole colony is infested with the predators and the locals get very touchy if you start shooting them," Marsha added.

The translator did a pretty good job with both 'alligator' and 'dragon,' except for the Volus, who didn't care about any of this, except insofar as it indicated a new commodity. Well, two, actually, if you counted a psionic's body as separate from the Meld which could be produced from it.

"The current crisis," Timor-Linar retook control of the conversation, "was set off by the Settlers Not Colonizers, movement, which advocates for changing our selves, not changing the planets we colonize via terraforming. Making traits which breed true in sapient life, beyond correcting genetic defects, is currently illegal, but they're trying to get the votes to overturn that. A lot of folks are worried about increased speciation and potential fragmentation of the Combine, but with five species already in and the costs of terraforming on the other side…it's going to be a close vote. The terraforming companies are spending money like water to try to make sure the proposal fails, while environmental and expansionist groups, as well as most colonization companies and support companies are pushing the other way."

"I see." Matriarch Lan'asi did see. Not the particulars necessarily, but they obviously had a lively and diverse public sector, more like her own Republics than the Hierarchy or the Union.

It was finally General Loryn's turn to ask a question. "You said you had a proposal. What is it?"

Martha took that question. "We respect the Council. We respect the peace it has brought. We respect and have sought to emulate the unity it provides. We would like to join you." The room swayed, waiting for the 'but' which was sure to come. It didn't. Yet. "We recognize the wisdom of many of your laws. Having learned from bitter experience the cost which exploration can bring, we certainly would never open a relay without securing both ends. We agree and understand with the prohibitions on the use of large scale WMDs on garden worlds. We have no issues signing on to and abiding by the Citadel Conventions. We are even willing to abide by the Treaty of Farixen, though it will require significant changes to our fleet composition and we will need to negotiate some time to make those alterations."

There were murmurs at that, both at the Combine's willingness to limit the number of dreadnoughts they could field and the implication that they currently had more than they would be allowed under the Treaty of Farixen. Then came the 'but'.

"However, as you have seen, we are _arguably_ in violation of your laws regarding genetic engineering. We _are_ in violation of your laws regarding Quarian settlement. And we _are_ in violation of your laws regarding artificial intelligence."

Silence greeted that pronouncement. The minister continued. "We have created no new sapient species and so would say we comply with your laws regarding genetic engineering. We would say that, as we have reclaimed Rannoch, your laws regarding Quarian settlement have done what they were meant to do and are outdated. However, we cannot comply with your laws regarding artificial intelligence. The Geth-Unity signed the Combine Treaty and have honored it. We cannot and will not cast them out. We cannot and will not make war on them. We cannot and will not betray them."

The general's talons flexed slightly, opening as if to strike. Body language was hard to read between species, but that one wasn't particularly subtle. Marsha spoke first. "However, we believe we have an alternative. You are all concerned about the potential harm caused by any AI revolt, especially one equipped with our weapons and technology. This is understandable. We would assuage your concerns by providing full files on the technology we recovered from the Ethereals. With that technology, we will all be on a level playing field, including the Geth. Our own successes against the Geth-Slaver and Geth-Genocidal make it clear that such victories are possible, with the right technology."

The combination of threat, gift and bribe was a potent one and set the cat among the pigeons. The room almost exploded in a frenzy of questions about what was on offer and who it would be given to.

"We are not offering our current military technology, however we are offering everything publically available within the Combine and everything which we took from the Ethereals. This includes techniques for identifying psionics, how psionics can create Elerium and, yes, the basis of our weapons and other technology. We offer this to the representatives of the Council, for further distribution as they choose. We do not claim the wisdom to make those decisions ourselves," Marsha's voice cut through the confusion with answers to the relevant questions and patently false humility.

The break the Council representatives insisted on this time did not involve surrounding the Combine ambassadors and questioning them, but rather involved surrounding the Council representatives to demand assurances that all powers would be given access to this new technology and that the Combine's terms be agreed to. Everyone was professional enough to manage that only behind sound-shielded doors, but it was a close run thing.

There would be more negotiations, more discussions, but the Council representatives knew what answer they would give. Any other answer risked fracturing galactic civilizations as everyone attempted to get access to the Combine's tech independently.

It was possible that their agreements would be foresworn by the Council after the Combine had handed over the tech. Dispersing it thereafter would be the Council's problem. Still, before they admitted that, there was a question they had to ask of the Combine representatives, in private.

 **XXXXX**

The meeting ended up being limited just to Marsha, Kinor and the representatives of the three nations who actually had Council seats. Inside the safe room (that would have to be abandoned now that they'd let Combine reps in), the meeting was private and everyone else had been left with enough Combine personnel to distract them from the existence of this meeting. Probably. Or at least it gave them too many things to keep an eye on, which would interfere with any infiltration efforts.

"Let's get right to the point. Why are you giving us all this?" the matriarch asked, a blunt shot aiming to unsettle and provoke a response.

"We explained that," Marsha said.

"The real reason," Loryn snapped.

"It is _a_ real reason. However, you are correct there are others," Marsha opened a hand to Kinor, while she berated herself for being overly precise.

"I'm sure you've thought of the vast majority of the reasons. Revealing the information like this radically reduces the risk of war, as even the most paranoid on your side will want to upgrade their fleets before fighting and the most paranoid on our side are disabused of the notion that our technological advantage renders us unbeatable," Kinor explained.

Marsha nodded. "Also, keeping this stuff secret would be impossible if we want any sort of contact with you. At least without closing our own society to a degree which would be illegal under half-a-dozen Combine Federal Ordinances and the 13th Clause of the Combine Treaty."

"Most of this is stuff available on the extranet. We'll let you steal our military secrets the old-fashioned way, but the stuff that's widely known, we might as well tell you. Besides," Kinor grinned, "it'll help you get your economy up to speed and your minds working on Ethereal tech. All to the good for those looking to trade."

"And you want exemptions for your actions which are violations of our laws regarding use of AI and genetic engineering," Okon put in.

"Yes and, in addition to demonstrating our good faith, it also demonstrates that we've handled dangerous technology for almost a century, successfully."

"Those are the reasons we've thought of, what reasons haven't we thought of?" Matriarch Lan'asi asked.

The Combine representatives looked at each other, as if contemplating their response. It was plainly a stall tactic to give their spokeswoman a chance to order her thoughts and recall prepared remarks, as there was no way they'd gone into this conversation without knowing exactly how frank they were prepared to be.

"You must have realized that the event sparking this contact was not the first time someone transgressed our boundaries?" she asked, obliquely.

"Yes," General Loryn said, with a strong undercurrent of 'get to the point'.

"When that happened, we tried to avoid contact. Usually X-Com, our external security agency, was able to do that, either through use of electronic misdirection, or the use of former Migrant Fleet vessels."

"That's another point we will need to discuss! If I understand correctly, every time we've spotted the Migrant Fleet for the last century, that has actually been Combine military units infringing on our space!" General Loryn pushed.

"X-Com units, to be more precise. But yes. We could hardly just have the Fleet disappear. Even though no one would _care_ , people would get curious," Kinor pushed back, a razor-edged smile flashing from dark grey lips.

"Indeed, veterans of those excursions were a powerful voice arguing against open contact, on the theory that no one in Citadel Space would be willing to deal with the Quarians, and therefore the Combine, in a fair manner," Marsha backed her up, saying what her companion couldn't without it being taken for posturing rather than truth.

The ambassadors were too experienced to show any embarrassment over the treatment of Quarians within Citadel Space, but they were also too canny to fight on ground that was _not_ favorable to them. "And what happened to those of our people who could not be so gently dissuaded?" Lan'asi slid in.

"If we could not prevent them from discovering our existence, we offered three options. The first was to have their memories of us removed, their ship logs edited and be sent on their way."

"You can do that?" General Loryn asked, voice flanging in distress at the very thought, which perhaps explained, though it did not excuse asking such a stupid question.

"Obviously," Okon put in, clearly fascinated.

"Usually. It depends somewhat on the person. Asari are remarkable difficult, especially older Asari. Fortunately, Asari almost uniformly chose the second option, resettlement within the Combine. Which reminds me, those Asari have requested a change in status, which should be granted—"

"Contingent on the outcome of this negotiation," Lan'asi put in, cynically.

"No, their release is not contingent, but we'll need to figure out its manner. Also, one Salarian made the same choice several decades ago. He is deceased, but requested that his files and notes be provided to his kin upon the opening of contact," Marsha sent the files to the Salarian rep's omni-tool with the push of a button.

"No Turians?"

"Turians uniformly chose the third option and attempted to fight."

General Loryn nodded sagely and let the conversation move on, politely eliding the clear failure of any of those fighters to survive.

"Likewise, our interlopers fell into three categories, pirates, who fought; traders, who agreed to the mind wipe; and explorers, who agreed to resettlement. There were occasional exceptions to this rule. One of those was the first incursion by the Shadow Broker's forces into our space. We still don't know how the Shadow Broker knew anything was going on, but a ship of mercenaries was sent," she held up her hand, showing a frigate-sized vessel closing in on what looked like a courier craft. "They chose to fight and die," the courier ship vanished and what had to be a second, identical, ship dropped in from FTL behind the frigate, outside range of its GARDIAN systems and casually cut it to pieces with longer range lasers mounted on its prow. "A second, larger ship was sent. They chose to pretend they wanted to negotiate, then attempt to ambush our greeting party," the omni-tool displayed two ships of almost equal mass tethered together in space. "They were unaware that there was a platoon of elite troops onboard the ship and were slaughtered to the last. The third time, the Shadow Broker gave an agent who'd never failed in a task an unlimited budget and demanded answers. The agent hired a ship and a crew of very unpleasant mercenaries. They docked with one of our patrol ships and the agent proceeded to distract us with actual discussions while his crew was moving into position to seize the ship. Then the agent switched sides and eliminated his fellow mercenaries, in exchange for a meeting with X-Com. This request was granted. The agent was Urdnot Wrex," her omni-tool displayed an image of the Krogan Battlemaster, towering over a frail-in-comparison Human in the black uniform of an X-Com senior officer. "Wrex worked for X-Com as a field agent, then field commander for the next fifty years."

"This is fascinating stuff, but I'm not seeing the connection," Loryn put in, very unhappy with the sudden interjection of the (or at least, a) Krogan into this affair.

"When first contact was made, Wrex broke X-Com protocol and Combine Federal Ordinances in order to argue publically that the Combine should present the Council with a fait accompli, either seizing Tuchanka, or declaring what he described as a 'free Krogan colony' within our borders. When it became clear that we weren't going to do that, he did three things simultaneously."

"How does one person do three things simultaneously?" the Salarian asked, suspiciously.

"With help," Kinor responded "After fifty years in the field, Wrex had a lot of friends and comrades within X-Com. And 'come help me save my people from genocide' is a hard pitch to say no to."

"Wait, what?" Loryn asked.

"Wrex switched sides originally because he came across an unsuited Quarian crewman on the ship and believed that if we could do that, then we could cure the Genophage. Indeed, he has repeatedly claimed that X-Com promised him they would do just that, if he worked for them."

"Did they?" Lan'asi asked, more to buy time to think than because she cared about the response.

"We can't find any evidence of that, but X-Com specializes in keeping secrets and the records would all be fifty years old. Anyway, it hardly matters, because he had one of his people go in and requisition a massive amount of Meld, while he led a team into Vahlen Genetics and left with six of their best—"

"Kidnapped six of their best," Kinor muttered, interrupting Marsha.

"We don't know that, there's some indications they went willingly. But the worst part is still to come. A group also seized the _Stiletto._ "

There was a pause, then the Salarian's patience ran out. "What do we care if they grabbed a knife?"

"The _Stiletto_ is the name of a brand new X-Com Stealth Destroyer," for the moment, as X-Com let each new captain rename their ship, partly to show disdain for mere superstition, partly as a perk for the captains and partly to make it more difficult to track their actions. Marsha let all that pass without comment, instead pulling an omni-tool out of her pocket and sliding it across to them. "The _Stiletto's_ capabilities are on there, please be careful where you use it, it's secured against tampering, but…still."

"So the reason you need to show good faith is because a Krogan Battlemaster, who worked for you for half-a-century, is running around the galaxy with a grudge against us, a desire to cure the Genophage, a lake full of your magic genetic goop, six of your best geneticists and an unknown number of your top soldiers, in one of your secret, top of the line, _stealth_ military vessels, is that about right?" Lan'asi asked, suddenly feeling the shift in negotiating strength.

The Combine representatives glanced at each other, then nodded their agreement of her summary of the situation.

She glanced at her fellows. "We need to confer amongst ourselves, then we'll get back to you."

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: X-Com Committee:_**

 _All societies face the question of 'who watches the watchman.' For most organizations the answer is the news media, the inspector general, or something similar. This is made more complicated when an organization's job is covert operations. For X-Com, repurposed as the Combine's eXtra-COMbine military unit, it is incredibly complicated as they only operate in areas outside the normal means of observation and reporting._

 _Unwilling to grant them carte blanche to act as they like, but recognizing the need for them to be able to act without red tape, the Combine limits their actions to extra-Combine operations and imposes the oversight of the X-Com Committee on them. Unlike all other Combine Committees, the X-Com Committee is not made up solely of members of the Combine Parliament._

 _Instead the 16 Members of the Committee are chosen at random, four from amongst those employed by the Combine (military or civilian), four from amongst the Combine Parliament, four from amongst a list of volunteers which anyone can join, and four from amongst X-Com itself. The Members each serve four year terms, with four being selected each year, one every three months. All Members are completely anonymous._

 _The Members elect a Chair of the X-Com Committee. The Chair may be anyone in the Combine, so long as they receive a majority of the votes of the Committee. While the Combine Parliament sets the goals of X-Com, it is the Committee and the Chair which ensure that the secret military unit is, in fact, carrying out those goals._

 _All Members swear or affirm to keep everything they see and hear in the course of their duties secret. Betraying that oath or affirmation is the only remaining capital crime in the Combine. Five previous members of the Committee have in fact been executed for violating that oath._

 ** _Codex: Banking Committee:_ **

_The Banking Committee, actually the Banking, Commerce and Currency Committee, is run by the Vol Protectorate and has been since the Vol Protectorate was the Vol Confederation, before they petitioned for protectorate status within the Hierarchy._

 _The Committee's greatest accomplishment is generally held to be the creation of the credit, the universal currency. So successful is it that its use extends beyond the bounds of Council Space. Throughout the galaxy, the credit is the standard currency. Some Terminus polities do maintain an independent currency as well, but they've proven so horribly unstable that unless credits are actively banned, they function as a de facto second currency._

 _The Committee itself would say that its greatest accomplishments are successfully managing a galactic scale economy with minimal corruption; integrating new economies with only a minimum of fuss and not letting the Hierarchy go bankrupt building ever bigger dreadnoughts._

 ** _Codex: Primarch's Guards:_**

 _The Turian Blackwatch are deployed when the security of Palavan requires that someone die. The Primarch's Guards are deployed when the security of Palavan requires that someone live. Their reputation is excellent, if bloody. Usually their duties include security for the Primarch of Palavan, the flag officers charged with security of the Palavan system, and (after an embarrassingly successful STG operation almost destabilized portions of the Turian economy which competed with the STG's patron's interests) the members of the Banking Council._

 _Their equipment, training and record are second to none. Though they have lost before, it has only been at enormous cost to the attacker. Though they shun the spotlight, they have occasionally been forced into it. Most famously, during the Krogan Rebellions, an assassination team attacked a meeting where one attendee was protected by the Primarch's Guards. The Turian platoon held off a brigade of Krogan, counterattacked to take out the anti-air/space battery which was keeping the protectee pinned and extracted her. None of them survived, but there were more than three hundred casualties amongst the Krogan assailants, even before the last surviving member of the platoon detonated the facility's reactor, destroying the rest of the attackers._

 ** _Codex: Perfection Heresy:_**

 _The Perfection Heresy was a major internal conflict amongst the Silicoids on Mars in the 2040s. As the new homeworld of the Silicoids, Mars has hosted hundreds of cultural movements amongst the Silicoids, who lost their own culture in their centuries of slavery to the Ethereals. Most of these movements are based around how many Silicoids should form a single gestalt personality and how the individual members should choose one another._

 _The Perfection Heresy fits that pattern as it grew out of a singularly successful and unified Person, known as the Expansionist. The Person became convinced that the other personalities were imperfect and unacceptable. It launched an attack on the main nursery/construction yard on Mars, eliminating hundreds of other Persons, seizing their newly constructed fellows and separating itself to create nineteen copies of itself, each made up of a single Silicoid from the Expansionist and almost a dozen newly constructed Silicoids, whose personalities could be shaped to be more Expansionists._

 _The Expansionists scattered, gathering resources and followers (with lies as their ideology left no room for anything and anyone which was not more Expansionists) and launched a bloody rebellion against the Martian government._

 _Eventually it was put down, with the execution of every Silicoid who'd ever been part of an Expansionist personality. The last Expansionist was executed in 2042, after a second attempted raid on a nursery/construction yard._

 **Author's Note: One point which may cause confusion is the lack of reference to fusion weapons. We don't get much explanation for them in canon, so I'm treating them as super-powered lasers, suitable for ship-to-ship use, or ship-to-ground bombardment.**

 **To the question about Mech troopers, as discussed above, there's a general shortage of Meld, which, combined with the Quarians reducing the need, meant that the research never went that route. Meld allowing additional enhanced cybernetics is a known fact, but it's too uncommon and too Meld-expensive to be widely used. At least in the general military or public, who knows what X-Com's up to?**

 **Reviews are always welcome. Next week we finish up our intermission.**


	10. Intermission Part 3: Visiting the Unknow

**Intermission Part 3: Visiting the Unknown**

 **Author's Note: Okay, there were a lot of comments about the last chapter. First, to all the people who made appreciative comments, thank you very much. To those who made critical comments, thank you as well. For those who aren't interested, the rest of the bold is responses to the critical comments. You are, of course, free to skip it, as the story does not depend upon this explanation. Reviews are always welcome and I'll do my best to address them.**

 **First, I should say that a lot the confusion is the result of me not being clear and me choosing to write the last chapter from the perspective of the Council reps. This had the advantage of introducing us to the Combine through the eyes of people who didn't know what was going on with it, but also meant that they weren't likely to rock the boat by asking questions which might cause the Combine to change their mind. Perhaps (note to self when going back through at the end) I should add in a rather more blunt question or two, though much of this isn't stuff the Combine would admit at this stage. The best way to do this might be a private internal debate within the Combine (maybe a Zorah family meal), but right now I don't think I could do justice to both sides.**

 **The critical comments basically boiled down to three questions:**

 **1)** **Why would the Combine want to join the Council, without being offered a seat on the Council, at least?**

 **2)** **Why would the Combine give up their technological advantage?**

 **3)** **Why would the Combine sign the Treaty of Farixen?**

 **Before I get to those questions a note I may not have made sufficiently clear. The Combine is very unhappy with this situation. Their hand was forced, twice. First, the Admiral intervened and introduced themselves as a representative of the Combine, revealing their existence. Second, Wrex goes rogue. That radically limits the options which don't lead to war. And the Combine very much does not want a war.**

 **1)** **The Combine wants to join the Council because its businesses want access to Council markets, its people want access to Council worlds and it because its military wants allies against the Geth-Slaver, Geth-Genocidal and any other enemies.**

 **The businesses which might be nervous all believe they have an initial technological advantage which will permit them to expand to a position of market dominance, or at least competitiveness on a much larger scale then before. It may be a smaller slice, but the larger pie will make them all richer.**

 **A large plurality of the Combine's population has been for initiating first contact before this, however there was never an impetus to take the risk until their hand was forced. With the risk of losing the secrecy of their existence gone, the anti-open-contact groups have lost their best argument.**

 **The Council are not great allies, as we've seen repeatedly in their history, but they're also absolutely _terrible_ enemies as the Krogan and the Rachni can attest. The Combine military tends to think its better to have them inside the tent pissing out…**

 **Especially given the complete absence of any external multi-world or multi-system powers. There's some mention of the Terminus Systems, but we never see any actual sign of them being anything but individual groups that might pull together if invaded. In millennia nothing else grew there? Or did other things grow and then get kicked apart by Spectres because the Council does not abide external threats?**

 **And it should be pointed out that with the Quarians, the Council failed to come to their aid, that's not the same as attacking them. With the Krogan, the Krogan started a war of expansion inside Council Space. The Council tends towards failing to act against internal issue, not acting maliciously, even though it can have terrible effects. As the Combine is confident they can handle their own internal problems, they aren't too worried about that.**

 **Though theoretically the Combine's giving up some sovereignty, the only real sign of that are a handful of mostly ineffectual and unenforced laws, the Treaty of Farixen (discussed below) and having to let Spectres operate in your territory. That last is a major concern, but the Combine isn't particularly worried about that because they're confident X-Com and their own military forces can handle them if they become a problem. Psionics make security a great deal more…secure, if properly deployed.**

 **On the topic of the laws, as many people have pointed out, the Council isn't good at enforcing their laws (see the Hegemony and slavery), that's because they're more like the UN then the US and rely on their members for any major forces or enforcement. The Combine wants and gets explicit exemptions for the things that truly matter to them and if future issues come up, they're not above telling the Council to stick it, just as the Hegemony has done.**

 **Finally, the Combine isn't bargaining for a seat on the Council because they don't want one. A seat on the Council makes everyone who doesn't have one think you're an upstart and everyone who does have one think you're the new kid on the block. The Combine wants all of the perks of membership without any of the responsibilities of leadership, because they think that leadership is hopelessly incompetent and intend to ignore anything they say or do which interferes with internal Combine operations.**

 **The Council has proven very good at destroying people who attack them, but terrible at handling internal crises. The potential exception to this is the Hegemony, but I don't know that we have any canonical examples of the Hegemony (openly) attacking a Council world. The closest we come is the bombardment of Mannovai (Salarian, but affiliation unidentified) and the annexation of the independent colony of Esan (Asari) and a single skirmish on Enael (no information). What we don't get is any information about what the response was, or if those were even Council worlds (except Esan, explicitly not). Those are also three incidents, none within a century of the others, suggesting to me that the consequences of those actions were…unpleasant if they were anti-Council actions.**

 **From the perspective of someone worried about Council interference, their complete unwillingness to stop the Batarians from enslaving their own populace and raiding outside Council Space is actually a good thing. They won't stop the Batarians, why would they interfere with us? The one thing that might prompt that, concern over the AI/Geth threat, they get explicitly addressed.**

 **2)** **The Combine is willing to give up some of their tech advantage because there's no way to get what its people want without doing so. There are societies which are sufficiently closed that they could trade and travel amongst each other without giving anything away, but the Combine is not such a society. What they're giving up is what you could find on the extranet (and for the person who asked about the Admiral sharing the marine complement of his dreadnought, take a look at what Wikipedia has on US ships, there's a lot of information it's just not feasible to keep secret in an open society). The one exception to it being publically available information is the information about the ship Wrex stole, which is its capabilities, not how those capabilities have been achieved. Classified, yes, but not particularly helpful for R &D purposes except in demonstrating that something is possible. **

**Also, their hand has been forced. Wrex is running loose with their top-of-the-line tech and, as far as they know, he is more than willing to start a war. Which they really don't want. Partly because they'll lose.**

 **They have a tech advantage, but, as the Ethereals demonstrated, that can collapse very fast and the Council is just too big for rapid conquest. They've been colonizing space for thousands of years, to the Combine's hundred (and yes, the Combine is expanding slower than the Alliance did, though it's certainly not suffering from a lack of population, merely from greater bureaucratization and greater expenses in expansion due to serious defenses being necessary).**

 **Also, wars are incredibly expensive and damaging, which would interfere with their ongoing hunt for the Geth-Genocidal and the Geth-Slaver, as well as damaging their economy and killing a bunch of folks. If I was emperor of the Combine in a game of Total War: Mass Effect-X-Com I might engage in a first strike (after all, I can always load a save if things go wrong and all the casualties are virtual), the civilian elected leaders of the Combine are not going to do so.**

 **The Combine _might_ be able to successfully genocide the Council before the Council could find them, but they don't want to do that. Both because it would be immoral and because there would still be fleets of warships floating around with nothing to do but search for the Combine homeworlds to glass them in turn. **

**This also explains why they didn't take Wrex up on his suggestions, because they believe that absolutely would have started a war.**

 **The only option to keep their tech advantage is to avoid all contact, which they don't want to do, so they give it up as a gift, rather than having it leak out, or be sold by some opportunistic trader/traitor. Or, you know, Wrex himself giving the tech to various other powers in exchange for support in his crusade.**

 **Also, it creates massive markets for their businesses, at least until other businesses can adapt to the sea change in technology (which none of them have _any_ experience doing, due to the relatively slow and incremental nature of technological advancement in the Mass Effect universe). **

**3)** **The Combine is willing to sign onto the Treaty of Farixen because their dreadnoughts are only really intended to serve one purpose (they also act as giant troop transports, but that's just because someone saw an opportunity to economize), namely mutually assured destruction. Anyone attacks the Combine looking to commit genocide, the dreadnoughts avoid all combat and seek out the enemy worlds to glass them first. Think MAD with reusable ICBMs.**

 **For that, they don't need a giant fleet of dreadnoughts and that's all the Treaty of Farixen limits. In point of fact, they don't have a giant fleet of dreadnoughts, though they do have a large fleet. They'll need to mothball one dreadnought to become compliant, but will do so in such a way that makes reactivation a breeze.**

 **Moreover, they've recognized that in the current tech environment, dreadnoughts are horribly vulnerable to suicide attacks from smaller ships. A dozen shuttles with jump drives and nukes on board can destroy a dreadnought, if they can identify its location and get within jump range.**

 **The treaty doesn't limit their construction of smaller vessels (or larger vessels which are not dreadnoughts, e.g. carriers), which they have in abundance. And they've got an entire historical model, the Washington Naval Treaty, of how to game that system.**

 **They don't want to get sucked into an arms race with an economy dozens of times as large as their own, so they offer a concession which costs them nothing.**

 **Indeed, throughout the negotiation, they give up _nothing_ except that which they didn't want, or would inherently have given up by getting what they do want. The Council's lack of information regarding the Combine's capabilities and interests put them in a horrible bargaining position. **

**Finally, I don't want to leave you with the impression that the Combine wouldn't fight a war if they had to, but they certainly aren't going to begin a war of choice with a vastly larger enemy who's done nothing to them. The negotiation is _not_ a zero-sum game and they don't want it to be. **

**Thanks again for the reviews.**

Councilor Tevos glanced around the table. Only six of the matriarchs had managed to make it to the Citadel, but with Benezia and the Consort at the table, she couldn't ignore them for the hundred matriarchs who were joining this conference by comms buoy. Every major Republic was represented by at least one matriarch. They weren't official leaders, but they had the influence to sway the voices and votes, even of other matriarchs.

"I assume none of us speak for rejecting this offer?" Tevos asked the group. That was, in fact, a plebiscite that had been put forward to reject the deal and another to attack the Combine immediately, but neither was receiving any real support. The more relevant plebiscite was one focused on the question of the practicalities of admitting the Combine and handling the information that was to be passed over.

A circle of nods ran around the table and each of the screens.

"I reserve the right to change my position once we've updated our fleets, depending on what else we discover about this Combine. For if this is what they admit to, who knows what they conceal?" Matriarch Nuest said. Centuries of life on a colony bordering the Terminus and the Hegemony had made her hard and paranoid. The paint on her face, in the shape of tears, the color of blood, was unsettling.

"We all have the right to change our minds when the situation changes," another matriarch said, somewhere between soothing and snappish.

"And right now we need to understand the situation. What's this business with the Geth? I understand there are various factions, which the Combine has been fighting for almost seventy years? What information do we have regarding the Geth factions' capabilities and intentions towards us?" Nuest said, most definitely snapping.

"Based on our discussions with the Combine representatives, the situation differs substantially between the various factions," Matriarch Lan'asi explained from the new Asari colony. "The Geth-Isolationist have staked out a cluster which they're mining for materials for a single ship capable of sustaining their entire population in any star system. The ship is apparently going to be…very large."

"Do we have a location?" Nuest asked.

"The Combine does. They report that their external security agency, known as X-Com, has eyes on the ship at all times."

"We'll need that location for ourselves, but my concern is more with the genocidal and slaver Geth," Nuest said, in a tone which suggested the other matriarch should have known that.

"The Geth-Genocidal have apparently mostly been destroyed and the remnants are being pursued all over the Terminus by X-Com. They prioritized the Geth-Genocidal for obvious reasons."

"We all know how easy it is to destroy a planet, that's why the Citadel Conventions exist," Matriarch Cavius said, subtly drawing attention to the fact that it was her mother who'd created them and her father, a high ranking officer in the Hierarchy's military who signed for the Hierarchy. Cavius wasn't much of a force on her own, but her bloodlines made it difficult to ignore her on matters like this.

Matriarch V'Dova interjected, "Based on what I was told," she less subtly reminded the others that it was representatives of one of her affiliated families who made first contact (at least amongst the Asari who were still within the bounds of the Republics), "there is ongoing conflict with the Geth-Slaver, but it generally occurs as the Combine attempts to claim a new system, or sector, due to the heavy defenses the Combine places around its worlds."

"Indeed, though X-Com also attacks external sites to ensure that the Geth-Slaver cannot build up sufficient force to overrun any Combine worlds," Lan'asi added, suggesting that V'Dova's sources were out-of-the-know about X-Com. "They are far more numerous than the Geth-Genocidal, but not a major threat at this point, not with the Geth-Unity working hand-in-glove with the Combine."

"Until they turn on one another," Cavius said bitterly. Her world had bordered Quarian space and weathered the initial rush of refugees and subsequent combat between Geth and Quarians. The matriarch, like everyone else in the conversation was more than old enough to remember the fall of the Quarians.

"Which will be long after we've gained technical parity with them," Lan'asi pointed out. "If it happens at all."

"Yes, yes, nothing now. But we can't stand down either."

Tevos looked around the room and at the faces on the screens, seeing nods of agreement. "Agreed."

"I agree that the Geth are a problem for the future, but what's this business about psionics? Are we truly supposed to believe in something so ridiculous?" Matriarch Atevo asked. She was a theologian focused on the mystic nature of melding, with obvious concerns about anything with implications for that.

"It was demonstrated, most effectively," Lan'asi said. "They were able to induce panic in everyone except the Asari, which is the good news. Apparently psionic abilities don't work so well on us."

"And the bad news is?" Atevo asked.

"There are no indications that any Asari have psionic abilities. Now, they don't have a large population base to test, but they have done some examinations of genetic databases and Asari developmental patterns and haven't seen any indications that we have such abilities."

"You have the criteria by which they make that determination?" Atevo asked.

"I will when we make an agreement," Lan'asi said.

"Good. Make sure it reaches me as well."

"All information will be shared with everyone at this conference, that will be part of the plebiscite. You all can distribute the information thereafter as you see fit," Tevos said, slightly irritated, as Atevo should have known that. It was hardly surprising that the theologian hadn't bothered to read the plebiscite being discussed, as she didn't really care about anything except the impacts of psionics on her theories of theology of melding.

"Good," Atevo said, relaxing back into her seat.

"The final matter at hand is the Asari who have lived within the Combine for the last several decades. There's almost a hundred of them, with a great deal of knowledge about the Combine's technology and its people. Sixty-four are from the Republics, the rest are from the Terminus. We need to decide what we're going to do with them, after we debrief them," Tevos said, gently eliding the fact that said debriefing would need to be…candid and thorough.

That provoked a lot more debate. There wasn't anything to be done with the citizens of the Republics, except release them, the Terminus residents, however, were a harder question. The final answer was to offer them citizenship. An offer that would be accepted, as there would be commandos standing behind them to make sure of it and to make sure no one kidnapped and forcibly debriefed them. Once the technology leaked out, they would be free to go where they wished. Probably. Only the citizenship offer would be put to a vote.

When that debate finally finished, there was the usual post-conference pleasantries and several attempts by individual matriarchs to bring up additional topics they thought needed discussion, but Tevos managed to quash those. Eventually everyone else dropped off the line, or trickled out of the room, leaving her alone on the line with Lan'asi.

The ambassador flipped a switch and entered a higher level of encryption, causing the screen to go blank until Tevos could dig out the physical chip which was mated to the one she'd given to Lan'asi before sending the other matriarch on the mission. The paired chips created pseudo-random codes on a unique pattern which was, at least theoretically, impossible to crack. More realistically, anyone who could successfully crack it should already know what they were going to discuss.

"The Krogan. I didn't say anything, but I need to know it's being handled," she let the 'or else' go unsaid, but it hung in the air regardless.

"Each councilor is sending three Spectres. The matter will be handled."

"Good enough."

"I'm glad to hear that, _ambassador_."

"As glad as I am to say it. But I should give you a warning of another matter. There will almost certainly be trouble between the Combine and the Hegemony."

"There's trouble between the Hegemony and everyone," Tevos said, careful to keep her tone questioning, not dismissive as dismissing the concerns of a matriarch as skilled as Lan'asi would be very foolish (as well as insulting to an ally).

"Not like this. They were trying to be polite, but reading between the lines, it seems obvious that their original enemy was seeking to enslave them and succeeded in enslaving two of their constituent parts. The war with the Ethereals was a defining event for the Combine and it was, very much, a war against slavery. Ever since, they've been fighting a war against the Geth-Slaver. They are _not_ going to get along with the Hegemony."

"I see. I'll keep that in mind."

 **XXXXX**

"There are almost five hundred warships gathered at the rendezvous point. The supplies on the depot ships and the ships' internal supplies are already running short. None of the rest of the powers are prepared to feed a standing fleet that far out for a long period of time. There have also been raids on supply convoys, though not on our supply convoys. However, I'll have to redeploy ships from internal and external trade to supply the other ships of the expeditionary force, if this conference chooses to do so. I recommend that we do so on a reimbursable basis."

Antosia Recegatus, Primarch of the Apien Crest of the Turian Hierarchy nodded politely to the Praetor Kaknar Tar, the Volus logistics officer assigned to support the expeditionary force. With six Hierarchy fleets deployed and almost as many other ships joining them, that was a horribly complicated task. Antosia and Kaknar were the only ones actually in the room, as the other primarchs were attending this conference by comm laser.

"What are the impacts if you do redeploy the ships?" she asked.

"It will depend how long they're needed. Short term costs to send other goods by hired ships and the impacts of some shipments being delayed will be limited. Long term, we'll do serious damage to the economy, unless we get more transport ships built. If we need them for more than a month, I'll recommend pulling all of the _Kilnar_ class troop transports out of mothballs and refitting them as cargo carriers. We'll need to reinstall element zero cores in them, which will be expensive, but not on the order of a Hierarchy-wide shortage in transit capacity."

"Understood. We should know shortly."

"Complete backup plans are in the contingency files."

"Good. Assuming any course of action except war with the Combine, we will need to redeploy additional forces to provide protection against action by the Geth, strengthen the forces around Tuchanka and massively increase scouting throughout the Terminus and all areas around Combine space. I have proposals sent to all of your staffs, I expect responses by the end of tomorrow and we'll debate and vote the day after."

A chorus of agreements met that statement.

"The other matter on the agenda is increased funding for R&D and ship building, design and refitting to modify ships and equipment to take advantage of the new tech. I recommend three hundred percent increase, broken down as detailed in the funding file. Comments and votes on the same timeline as other topics. Any questions?"

There were no questions and everyone signed off with a brief exchange of military courtesies.

 **XXXXX**

The Salarian drummed his fingers and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

 _And waited._

Finally the STG operatives arrived with the samples, Quarian, Viper and psionic, as well as the one member of the ambassadorial team who'd been exposed to Meld as a child. Scans were easy enough, but Allin didn't want to know how they'd acquired blood and tissue samples without anyone noticing. It didn't matter for his project.

He started with the Quarian, as the STG files had baselines for pre and post-exile Quarian physiology which should explain the changes…which consisted of a supercharged immune system and _an entirely new organ_ which recreated the inputs which had managed the Quarian immune response on Rannoch.

That was…astounding.

But there was no sign of the Meld which made this possible. Not surprising as it would have been given to the Quarian's grandparents, or great-grandparents (Allin always got generations for the slower species confused).

The Viper's physiology and sample were fascinating due to its unique genetic plasticity and flexibility.

That was…interesting.

It suggested several interesting experiments, but didn't provide anything relevant to his current mission.

The psionic's samples weren't even that interesting. Without a larger Human baseline, there was no way to extract any real utility from that sample and it completely lacked any signs of this Meld substance.

That was…useless.

That left the one person he knew had Meld in their system in amounts sufficient to be worth recycling her corpse to reclaim it after death. There was nothing visible in the scans, or the blood sample, but in the tissue sample, there were nanomachines, no, there were nano- _organic_ machines.

That was…impossible.

Dr. Allin Solus smiled more broadly than he ever had in his life. Understanding that, cracking the links to find a way to clone the organic material and connect it to new nanomachines, that was the work of a lifetime. It would be the work of his lifetime, but he was sure he would succeed.

 ** _Codex: Dr. Allin Solus, Unlocked._**

He was wrong.

 **XXXXX**

Matriarch Lan'asi ignored the wink one of her guards threw to the Combine Marine who was guarding the ship's engineering section. It was obvious that at least one of her dozen commando guards was melding with at least one of the ten marines who was onboard to make sure the pilot didn't slam the ship into the planet. If she'd _known_ that was true, she'd have had to ask questions. As it was, she would just listen to gossip and not be responsible for young people and their hormones.

Though some part of her did note in passing that the marine's pale skin flushed in an automatic reaction to the commando's wink, which was an interesting reaction she might have liked to explore at some length with the exotically pale man, if she hadn't been in charge of a large group of people even younger than her own guards, whose hormones she was, in fact, responsible for (at least to the extent of stopping them from doing anything visibly stupid).

The fifty children who'd made the trip out from the Citadel to Earth were children of the elite on the Citadel, though carefully selected to ensure that all of the governments and species of the Citadel were represented.

This was Lan'asi's (and any representative of the Citadel's) first time on Earth, or even central Combine space, as the Combine had put off revealing information about their location until they'd been admitted as an associate species. Obedient to her orders, she'd spent much of the leisurely trip from the Mass Relay to the planet viewing the other planets in the system, while her ship's sensors produced a rather more useful record. Still, she could see that the entire system was full of ships, with the largest number running between the moons of the outer gas giants and the asteroid belt which was full of Quarians, but massive numbers still ran between Earth and Mars, the first colony of the Silicoids, and Venus, the first colony of the Vipers.

The defenses they'd had to pass through on their trip had been impressive, at least to a laywoman. The fleet defending the system was large, the station sitting at the relay was massive and the ship orbiting Earth, the so called 'Temple Ship' captured from the Ethereals, was simply absurdly large. An entire squadron of fighters had been sent to escort them from the space station orbiting the relay to the planet and her commandos estimated that the station could contain as many fighters and bombers as most fleets.

But now they'd arrived at Earth and her work really began. Well, once she'd managed to herd fifty teenagers off the ship. Fortunately they didn't much want to remain, as it was a standard Citadel personnel transport, the true exotica began now, with the slender Combine shuttle, piloted by a gracefully built Human, who greeted them with cordial amusement and dropped them through the atmosphere with a smooth skill that belied her youth.

Her voice came over the loudspeaker, "All right folks, we're landing in the ruins of old London. The station in geostationary orbit over old London is the center of the Combine government, which is why we're keeping our distance. The guards have absolutely no sense of humor."

Lan'asi glanced around as her charges tried to decide if it was appropriate to laugh or not. "If you look down, you'll see a vast sea of glass and melted metal. That's what was left of the city of London and about eight million people after the Ethereals were done with it."

They decided it was not appropriate to laugh as the shuttle continued its descent. Lan'asi agreed with them.

"And if you look to your left, you will see the Memorial of the Fallen." She looked out the window, which permitted the children on the other side of the shuttle to cluster around their classmate's windows and look down, seeing a massive mound of black rock, a barrow with grey decorations over it. A single thinner, elongated mound burst from the center forward and several smaller bumps lined the top of the main hillock. "Yes, it does look like a giant hand giving the finger to outer space, I notice that every time I fly this route."

Lan'asi didn't know what in 'giving the finger' meant and made a mental note to look it up, or follow up with someone from the Combine.

"And if you look to your right, you'll see the Monument of the Risen." This was also made of black stone, but shot with silver and gold, rising towards the sky in a single spiraling tower.

"We're putting down on the main shuttle-pad. No one was warned that you were coming, so there won't be any protesters, or assholes, but everything is open to the public. I know you've your own security, but otherwise this whole area is a protected site, with no one but authorized guards allowed to carry weapons. There are a couple of squads of the Death Guard on duty securing this facility, if there's any trouble, they'll handle it. You'll know them because they're armed, scary and dressed all in black."

 ** _Codex: Death Guard, Unlocked._**

She dropped them onto the landing pad amongst a dozen airbuses suitable for other school trips, a few other shuttles and individual aircars of varying qualities. "I see your guide just outside, already waiting for you. Thanks for flying with me today and have a pleasant stay on Earth."

Indeed, a tall man, with dark skin and loose, wavy grey hair awaited them on the path leading away from the landing platform. He had a calm reserve which suggested he would continue to wait patiently until they either arrived, or the universe ended, whichever came first. He wore loose clothing in greys and blacks, the mourning colors of the Quarians who'd escaped into the Migrant Fleet and most of the local Humans, if Lan'asi recalled correctly.

As they spilled out of the shuttle, the throng of teenagers (or the equivalent for their species) broke into social groups and beginning to chatter about the ride down, comparing it with various other shuttle rides and Earth with various other planets, as this was a widely travelled group (for their age). Lan'asi gave the commander of her escort a gentle signal and the commandos separated and began to herd the teenagers towards the guide with the quiet firmness of sheepdogs.

When they arrived at the edge of the shuttle pad most of them quieted down as they realized that the pad was built atop the glass and melted metal which formed the base of everything here. It truly was an ocean of the stuff. Only the path, constructed of asphalt, gave them any chance to walk without slipping. The man waited until they quieted down, then spoke in a gentle, carrying voice, "I am Frederick Anderson, the senior attendant here. It is my privilege to guide you and answer any questions you may have. Before we begin, do you have any questions?"

Coslio Caepnus asked the obvious question about what giving someone the finger meant. The Turian youth was determined to rebel against the stereotype of the Turian as disciplined, polite and incurious.

Shockingly white teeth flashed in Anderson's face and he raised a hand, folding in all the fingers save the middle one, "That is a reference to this gesture, which," he tilted his arm to the horizontal, "is similar to the appearance of the Memorial of the Fallen when viewed from above. It is a very rude gesture of defiance and insult. The architect who designed the Memorial apparently intended it to appear as such when viewed from above, as any potential future invader, or our political lords and masters in the Parliament might see it. It is widely believed that she slipped this in without anyone else involved in the planning knowing until the foundation had already been laid. There is no evidence to support this urban legend."

Lan'asi mentally slapped herself and was extremely grateful that of all the species present, only the Asari actually could make that gesture and they weren't particularly likely to, except for the few who went out of their way to be nasty (to prove they weren't soft, diplomatic _talkers_ like their mothers), but that group had been left behind. That hope went out the window when Coslio followed it up with a question about what the gesture meant and the attendant explained that it meant 'fuck you.'

The Asari (lacking a cultural predisposition to view fornication as shameful or insulting) almost instantly took it up as a suggestion, or invitation, and the other species decided that three fingered hands had a middle finger as well. So there was nothing for it but to be prepared to endure the storm of 'giving people the finger' until they got bored with it. Hopefully before they made it back to Citadel Space.

Still, with a sufficiently stern reminder that this was a graveyard and a memorial, she managed to squash it for the moment and gesture for their attendant to begin the tour. Her commandos were mixed in with the group, though she'd directed one to keep an eye on the only Elcor in the group, Risha, as most places weren't built on the right scale for even a teenaged Elcor. Fortunately for the young woman, everything was built on a scale to be accessible to Vipers, which gave her some clearance, though she still had to walk alone on the path, as there wasn't much room on either side.

*Surprised Utterance* "WHAT?" Risha boomed, tonelessly as always. Lan'asi started forward, as the holograms appeared around her, as she stepped onto the path, turning the barren wasteland that surrounded them into a lively cityscape, with large terraced buildings rising on either side of an impressive width of road filled with vehicles and Humans, dozens, hundreds of them in the streets.

"Here, it is always the moment before the Ethereals attacked. The moment before this city was killed in a futile attempt to break the alliance of Humanity and the Migrant Fleet. These are holograms constructed from the last known recording of London, a live broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation," Anderson waved a hand at the signs many of the people were holding. "As you can see, many of the locals turned out so their voices could be heard, or their signs could be seen, at least. There were as many views then as there are now about the right thing to do. We can see from where the camera was, signs proclaiming that we should never surrender, that we should give peace a chance and that this is all a hoax, amongst others."

They walked in silence for a moment, through the eerie, still holograms of people a century dead, seeing the emotion on their faces, in their bodies, even if their signs did not speak to those who could not read the Human languages they were written in, still a message was conveyed.

Before them they could see the barrow of black stone rising like a storm cloud over the holographic projection as the camera had been shooting straight down the street towards where they were coming from and produced no background, but when she turned, she couldn't see the shuttle, just rising tiers of tenements where the street dead ended and above them a dot that must be the Temple Ship in high orbit.

The kids whispered to one another, then spoke more loudly to prove they weren't scared. Her commandos bunched up somewhat, chivvying the teenagers along more sharply to get them all out of this creepy place. Lan'asi let herself feel it, the loss and fear which permeated this place and which they were trying to share. That was why she was here, to truly understand the Combine.

Chatter died away under the pressure of silence from their attendant and, after a glance at Lan'asi, their guards. The silence couldn't survive an advance at the pace of an Elcor either, but before it could die, there was movement in front of them. Lan'asi couldn't see what was happening, but her guards reacted in a way which said someone was coming. Quick steps brought her to right behind where Risha was blocking most of the path.

Over one massively muscled shoulder, stood a pair of half-grown Vipers, a midget Viper (ah, no, her first sight of a Viper male, smaller and lacking the seam along the front of his scales which females possessed and could open to consume/unite with a male) and a scrawny Human male, probably barely post adolescent given the nature of his fellows. Their path was blocked and they were trying to figure out a way around. One of the larger Vipers (still small, but twice the size of the Human male) slithered swiftly through Rishan's legs, almost making the Elcor flinch, though she controlled the reaction.

Before anyone could say anything, the other Viper snatched up the male Viper and flicked him over Rishan's back with a single, powerful movement. The Human male followed, making a sound somewhere between a shriek and a giggle as he flew into the arms of the second Viper, who caught him somewhat more gently than she had the scaled Viper. Three Human fingers came together into a claw and he ran them along the inside of the hood of skin which framed her face (which must be a gesture of affection, given the Viper's reaction). She chuckled and put him down, at which point he realized he was surrounded by teenage (analogue) Asari and other species, not merely one giant Elcor.

Lan'asi could see the thoughts flick over his mind as he went right through panic to teenage male opportunism. He swept a graceful bow towards every Asari in sight, with special attention paid to the more mature and developed Lan'asi, with a hand gesture that seemed to include the others in the group, though his eyes never made it that far. "Well, hello, ladies," a brilliant smile flashed over his face as the other Viper followed her (sister?) fellow through the Elcor's legs and out into the throng.

"On your way, Mr. Vega," Anderson put in, quellingly, before anyone could say anything.

"Ah, but—"

"Jenny's waiting," one of the Vipers put in, which took the wind out of the young man's sails.

"Oh, right…well, see you later," he said to Anderson, though his eyes had never managed to make it to the older man. The locals swept away quickly, a Viper keeping a firm hand on the boy's shoulder until they were out of sight.

"Sorry about that, usually they'd have been more…somber. Well, all of them except Mr. Vega. However, since the visitor warning was disabled, they thought you must be more staff and didn't know to be properly subdued," Anderson explained over Rishan's broad back.

"I see. Is that sort of thing common?" Lan'asi asked.

"Flying men? Not really, at least not without the aid of technology or biotics," Anderson said, though it was awkward to hold a conversation over the breadth of Rishan. Fortunately, he got them moving again, as the students were getting antsy.

"No, sorry, I meant interspecies groups that are that…affectionate," Lan'asi said, letting him draw his own implications for what she was referring to when she said 'affectionate'.

"Not that unusual, but it depends on the species. Human-Quarian romantic, familial or interpersonal relationships are quite common. Due to their nature few such bonds exist with the Silicoids, but there are a lot of lingering familial ties with the Vipers due to the history there. We'll get into that at some of the exhibits."

Lan'asi nodded as they finally cleared the short path and stepped out from the holographic city into the real ruins. It was an effectively poignant moment, as if the city around them, so recently made real had just died.

Anderson stepped forward onto a set of steps flanked by ramps before the cavernous mouth of the barrow. "This is the Gate of the City, leading into the Memorial of the Fallen. The Memorial is constructed of basalt and took more than five years to build. After that, it took a thousand workers another five years to carve the name of everyone who died in the Ethereal War into that basalt and pour metal, melted down from the hulls of the Ethereal ships, into those carvings, forming these inscriptions," his hand ran over the silver decorations they'd seen on their descent, which were lines of Human and Quarian script rippling over the black of the rock.

"Surrounding the Gate of the City are the names of those who died in the destruction of London. Those names cover almost three quarters of the entire body of the Memorial," Anderson went on. "Eight million, two hundred and thirty seven thousand, three hundred and four. The Memorial will not be complete until every name is added and researchers discover more all the time. In the fifty-two years I've been working here, one thousand and seventy three names have been added."

He spun on his heel and led them through the open gateway. It was wide enough to let others slip past Rishan and join them in the museum. There were figures on either side of the door in matte black armor, one Quarian, one Human. Their feet slammed to the ground and weapons rose as they snapped to attention with robotic precision as the group entered into the atrium, which consisted of a large circular room with half a dozen displays and no obvious exit (which didn't thrill the commandos).

The attendant nodded politely and guided them to the first set of displays, which lit up at their approach. "The Ethereals came to the world of the Sectoids and destroyed them," the display showed the small grey skinned aliens who the Ethereals had enslaved and destroyed and what little information they'd been able to pull about the creatures from the Ethereal's database, including a single image of a city of glistening crystal. "As best we can reconstruct, the Sectoids were psionics even before the Ethereals arrived and were able to resist their psionic domination. And so they were exterminated to the last, their bodies recycled to create Meld. New ones were not born until the Ethereals reached their next destination and decided they needed additional troops and so cloned them, empty of mind and will to resist, bodies which moved at their command and died in stillness and silence without command."

The next set of displays were of Silicoids. "The Silicoids were next. On their homeworld, they were almost impossible to defeat, for they could manipulate the very ground beneath your feet and their gestalt minds were difficult to even touch. But the Ethereals had as many clone troops as they could grow and found a way to shatter the gestalt into individuals they could enslave. They bound individuals to drones, ignoring the damage they did to the psyches of those lonely people, but they also bound gestalts into cyberdiscs. That was what permitted some of the Silicoids to return to themselves when the Ethereals fell. And so the Silicoids rose, despite having fallen."

The third display showed Floaters, twisting things of metal and flesh and the original underlying creature, hollow boned and with wings which would have to be twisted away to fit into the armor of a Floater. "The Floaters lived in vast flocks on their homeworld, darkening the skies with their numbers, but the Ethereals came and seized the central nests. With their young under threat, the flocks bowed and submitted to the experiments which twisted their bodies and minds until they served without expectation of freedom for themselves, or their children. Freed, they died to the last at their own hand, but their self-proclaimed masters proceeded them to oblivion."

"Then came the Chryssalids, uplifted insects which never rose above their nature and had to be exterminated when they lacked any external force to control their appetites," this display consisted of a Chryssalid and the various stages of the effects of its venom on Humans, which made several of the teens flinch, though none vomited, which put them one up on most tour groups in Anderson's experience.

"They arrived at the world of the Vipers and conquered. We do not know how. Only that it was done and they used the Vipers flexible natures to twist them into any shape which suited their fancy," this display was brief, showing only Vipers, and the twisted mimicries of Humanity which were the Thin Men and a mockery of a Muton which they'd discovered in the database. "That flexibility let the Vipers escape when the fog was finally lifted from their minds. But unlike the Silicoids, there were young Vipers, children, on the Temple Ship, being trained to be soldiers for their putative masters. Their fellows had no experience in child-rearing, but there was a world full of Humans below who had raised children before and a Fleet of Quarians above who had done likewise and so, together, all three races ensured that the Vipers rose from their fall." In fact, it had been almost entirely Humans, both because Vipers couldn't eat Quarian food, and because there had been a _lot_ more Humans than there were Quarians.

"Last were the Mutons," this display was the largest, revealing a world covered in dense plant life. "They lived in a state of constant war with other tribes of Mutons, and constant peace with their world, as they'd evolved in symbiosis with the plants which covered their world." The display showed massive plants with…teeth. Lan'asi was definitely going to have nightmares. Those same plants have resisted any landing by our explorers as this was the only world touched by the Ethereals we were able to find. The plants are constantly at war with one another, allowing only those Mutons which emitted the proper pheromones to exist within their domain and, in turn, the Mutons aided the plants in their civil wars. After failed landings," an image of a large Ethereal ship acting as a planter to hundreds of massive plants, "the Ethereals cleared areas from space with plasma fire. But that gave them no prisoners. So they chose to strike the weak point and engineered a disease which shifted what pheromones the Mutons emitted. Separated from their symbiotic protectors and hounded, they were left with nowhere to go but the clearcut area, where the Ethereals offered them sanctuary from the disaster they had created. And so the Mutons fought for their masters, their alleged saviors, until the last of them fell, repaying a debt which never truly existed."

Anderson was a consummate showman and let that sink into his audience before he continued.

"These are the species who fell to the Ethereals' lust for power and control, these are the Fallen Peoples. But one more fell." He walked towards a wall and a skylight opened revealing there was no wall there, merely darkness so dense none of the light had penetrated it. Now the skylight revealed the figure (whether impressively skilled sculpture or taxidermy, Lan'asi couldn't say) of an Ethereal, towering over Anderson and anyone else in the room. "The Ethereal Ones, conquerors, slavers, murderers and monsters. They are fallen, but unmourned and unforgotten. This memorial is a monument to their arrogance, their folly and their _failure_. Unlike the Silicoids, unlike the Vipers, we will ensure that they _never_ rise again."

Silence stretched for a moment after that fierce announcement. Then his fury went away as suddenly as if he'd flicked a switch. "Any questions before I release you into the main body of the Memorial?"

The single Volus student spoke without bothering to indicate he had a question as was the Volus wont, "*HSKT* How much did all this cost?"

Lan'asi winced at that, but Anderson merely tilted his head, "Converting for inflation, approximately eight billion pounds to construct, with an annual budget of about five million and major renovations or improvements budgeted separately."

"And what does that mean in credits?"

"Conversion rate hasn't been set yet, but you could buy a new dreadnought for about the same amount."

"Ah. Thank you."

"Any other questions?" Silence greeted that. "Then you're free to explore the main body of the Memorial. I'll be making the rounds answering questions and you can ask anyone dressed like me if you have other questions. Any of the guards can assist you as well. Bathrooms are labelled with this symbol," he brought up his omni-tool to project the English letter 'B', "and are for the use of one person at a time. The café has dextro and levo food, do be sure you tell your waiter which you need. Tell the cashier you're with the Citadel Expedition and your bill will be handled. Feel free to sample as much of the food as you like, though the food here is no better than adequate. From the Combine's perspective you're free to interact with anyone here, but they have not been prescreened, they're just the people who happened to be here. That does include a class from a local elementary school," he realized that didn't mean anything, "made up of pre-adolescents. It also includes some graduate students, some tourists, volunteers like Mr. Vega and his cousins and a local government politician," that last was said with an eye flicker of warning at Lan'asi, which she caught, drifting closer to him as the group of teenagers exploded out of enforced idleness and observation into movement and conversation.

The matriarch stuck around. Absorbing the atmosphere of this place was part of the reason she was here and speaking to a random cross-section of the populace would help with that (and if they turned out to be not-random, despite Anderson's words, well that would be interesting as well), but for the moment, she'd start with the one person she knew was there to handle the Citadel folk.

"I hope Ilk Nak's question was not insulting to you. To a Volus, it certainly wouldn't be."

Anderson smiled slightly, "I've seen people break down weeping when they find a relative's name; I've seen this place trigger PTSD episodes in old veterans; I've seen the conspiracy crazies come in and denounce this whole place as lies, the Ethereals were patsies of the Quarians so that they could conquer us without our resistance; and I've seen the victims of con men who believe that they bought a place for some deceased loved one in the Tomb of Heroes. The kid asked the question in good faith. Trust me, he didn't offend me."

Her eyes lit up at that comment about 'conspiracy theorists' it was the first sign of any real disunity amongst the species of the Combine on anything except standard political lines. "Are there lots of these conspiracy theorists?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, sure. You'd need to ask someone else for information about all the 'someone is about to overthrow the Parliament' or 'someone else is secretly controlling the Combine' stuff, I don't keep track of that, but the historical ones come up a lot in my line of work. I spend quite a lot of time debunking ridiculous claims about the Quarians, Vipers and Silicoids."

"Not Humans?"

"Not so much in the historical arena. We only had the one planet and it was plainly visible from space, so hiding what our technological condition was really isn't on. There's other historical conspiracy theories if you go back farther, but they don't usually come up and when they do they aren't something that can be debunked because their only evidence is the lack of evidence. The story about the Illuminati secretly controlling the Ethereals, because the Temple Ship looks like a pyramid is my favorite."

Lan'asi's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Unless my translator isn't working, the Temple Ship doesn't look anything like a pyramid."

"Exactly! They were too smart to make it look exactly like a pyramid. It's only to the discerning eye that you can make it look like a pyramid through that ancient and mystical technique of declaring arbitrary things are not actually part of the ship."

"Ah. Yes, we have those as well," she laughed slightly. He did as well.

She glanced around the larger room and saw no difficulties, though several clusters of Citadel teenagers were talking amongst themselves instead of properly mingling and amongst the minglers, there was a certain awkwardness (perhaps caused by the presence of her guards, or the black armored 'Death Guard' which was not an encouraging name).

"Do you have any kids of your own?" she asked after a moment.

"Looking for advice on handling your swarm?"

"Just curious, but if you've got any advice, I'll take it. My children are all reaching Matronhood these days."

"Well, I've got eight, but I don't know that I can give you any helpful advice. My main tactic during their teenage years was either avoidance or hard physical labor until they got tired."

"Eight? Sheesh. You're braver than I. And on such a short time scale," Lan'asi said.

"Eh, but the timescale on childhood is similarly compressed. Besides, I didn't have them all at once. Followed the usual pattern these days, a couple when we were young, then a couple more when we were older and the kids were all grown. Modern anti-aging and fertility treatments have really been a godsend, especially given how many empty worlds there are in the galaxy, just desperately needing some Brits on them."

Her eyes flickered for a moment as the translator mangled Brits badly enough that it took her an embarrassingly long time to decode. They chatted about children for a moment, he was clearly irritated that his youngest was 'getting back to nature' at a Viper kibbutz on Venus. Her own youngest was a notably terrible poet, so she could commiserate.

Eventually it occurred to her that for a Memorial, this place was remarkably short on uplifting victories, being instead focused entirely on the dead, the injured and the horrible ways they got that way. She said as much.

"You want the Monument of the Risen for that. Through the main hall, out the Gate of the Soldier and down the path," Anderson explained.

"How many gates does this place have?" Lan'asi asked, teasing him.

"Three, you entered through the Gate of the City, surrounded by the civilian casualties of the war; the Gate of the Soldier leads to the Monument of the Risen and is surrounded by the names of the military casualties of the war; and the Gate of Secrets, surrounded by the noms de guerre of the X-Com agents who died in the war, leads to the Tomb of Heroes," she glanced over at him, "containing the bodies, or at least remains of, every Commander of X-Com and thirty three other persons, each admitted by Act of Parliament. It is the highest honor in the Combine and only awarded posthumously."

"Are we allowed to see the Monument?" she asked.

"Oh, sure, the whole place is open to the public. Come on, I'll show you," Anderson led the way. Despite his grey hair and obvious age, for a Human, he was still vigorous and moved through the Memorial with the certainty of a queen moving through her subjects. Not coincidentally he also evaded a woman whose bearing screamed politician (it helped that she was being trailed by a pair of camera drones).

The rest of the day passed in study and absorption of the Combine's national myths, which was actually quite pleasant. The only fly in the ointment was the discovery that Anderson was in constant communication with the Geth, which was how he'd known the exact cost of constructing the facilities. That had led to an important, but horribly dull conversation about the effects of Geth and automation more generally on the Combine economy. Especially since in the end it boiled down to 'me and mine are doing fine but really what can you tell from one anecdote' which wasn't exactly helpful.

 ** _Codex: Combine Economy, Effect of the Geth-Unity, Unlocked._**

It was irritating that that ate so much of her otherwise pleasant day, as the next day had her meeting with the Combine Parliament and then meetings with yet more politicians. Though theoretically a cultural exchange program, for her, besides this one stop, it was going to be politics, not culture. Irritating, but she'd known what she signed up for.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Dr. Allin Solus:_**

 _Dr. Allin Solus specialized in the study of Meld. A graduate of the Sur'Kesh School of Genetics, he spent a career attempting to figure out a way to create Meld which didn't require the nano-deconstruction of a psionic's corpse. Especially after the discovery that Salarian psionics were the rarest of any species who actually possessed psionics._

 _After almost two decades of failure, Dr. Solus was jailed for unethical experimentation, after it was discovered that he'd given up on more standard techniques and was attempting to clone psionics in order to break down their corpses for Meld._

 _He was discovered after his original attempts did not work (cloning psionics does not work well, in addition to being illegal) and he realized that more than mere genetic potential was needed to awaken a psionic. The Ethereals had gotten around this by forcing that stimulus directly into the minds of their Sectoid slaves, an option not open to him. So he went in search of a psionic in the grey economy to forcibly awaken the psionic potential he believed he'd bred into his clones. He found one, only to be promptly turned in by her._

 _He did not live to see trial. It is unclear who assassinated him, with common suspects being the STG, for betraying them, Spectres, for bringing Citadel Space into disrepute, and X-Com, for engaging in behavior similar to that of the Ethereals._

 ** _Codex: Death Guard:_**

 _The Death Guard is made up of retired Combine soldiers. Shen Industries has funded it since its founding with a percentage of its profits, as required by the company's charter. It is said Dr. Shen felt some guilt over the difficulty X-Com soldiers had reintegrating into society. The other source of funding is dues paid by members and donations from members and the public._

 _Originally intended as essentially an international veteran's organization, in fact it rapidly became a nonprofit security company. The Death Guard provide security to museums and parks with connections to Combine military history. Famous for the military surplus equipment they insist on painting a depressing black and their absurdly strict discipline, the Death Guard accepts veterans of each of the Combine species, though the majority of the members are Human or Quarian._

 _The Death Guard attempts to ensure that each post has members from each of the races, to ensure that all are represented in each guard group. This practice has put them at odds with the various supremacist and segregationist groups, but otherwise it has avoided any political positions. Most members are part-time, dues-paying members who treat it as a social club, but it still has almost thirty thousand full time armed soldiers._

 ** _Codex: Combine Economy, Effect of the Geth-Unity:_**

 _This entry is five hundred and thirty three thousand words. The executive summary reads as follows:_

 _The effect of the Geth-Unity on the economy of the Combine is ambiguous at best, though the GDP has more than tripled. Though there were significant increases in production of materials and goods, that didn't produce any value for most people. Since the Geth did not particularly care about money, an accord was reached where approximately ninety percent of the value the Geth created was distributed to the local population, with the remainder being used to build and maintain Geth-Unity servers and mobile units._

 _However, most colonies also choose to retain sufficient independent capacity to feed themselves and maintain some semblance of an economy, even if the Geth-Unity were to be overridden, or destroyed. In order to do this, quite high wages must be paid to those workers._

 _Similarly, a small but significant number of colonies have requested that the Geth-Unity not come amongst them. Though the Geth-Unity have every right to go to those colonies under the Combine Treaty, these requests have uniformly been honored. More standard economic structures, though with minimal automation, dominate those colonies._

 _Some areas have proven extremely resistant to automation even by the Geth-Unity. These include the organic sciences, medicine, psychotherapy, law, law enforcement, art and most forms of research beyond pure mathematics._

 _The rest of this article addresses the precise ways in which the Geth-Unity have affected the Combine Economy and how successfully various economic models have predicted those affects._

 _The cultural impacts of large numbers of people not needing to work are beyond the scope of this entry._

 **Author's Note: This chapter was mostly about the fact that I felt a little bad about killing a city in a sentence and then moving on.**

 **This concludes our intermission. Next chapter we jump ahead again. Reviews are always welcome.**


	11. Chapter 8: Unknown Vision

**Chapter 8: Unknown Vision**

 **Author's Note: Okay, we're moving ahead to the 'present' now. Another time jump, means quite a lot more Codex entries. As always, these are written in such a way as to provide back-story and supporting information, but there should be NO NEED to read them to enjoy/understand the story.**

 **In response to reviews, thank you all for writing. There was one review which pointed out that the Geth really should make the Combine's industrial base pretty huge. They did indeed make it a lot larger than the Systems Alliances was. The reason it's not larger still, frankly is mostly because the Geth-Unity don't want to make it any larger. Their reasons for this are a bit opaque here, as, frankly they are in canon, where they've had an additional hundred and fifty years to expand, but don't really seem to have done much of anything (there's some talk of a giant ship ala the Geth-Isolationist, but they're an AI society with the industrialization to build dreadnoughts, where the hell is this ship?).**

 **In universe most folks believe that the Geth-Unity prefer to act as a force multiplier than an independent force, mostly because of the horrible consequences which occurred last time they were an independent force and out of concern about the social impacts if they provided everything to the Combine without effort or risk. Now, if they became convinced that the organics they've entered into a symbiotic relationship with, where the organics providing purpose and the synthetics providing unity and resources, if those organics were threatened, that might change. This is occasionally dubbed the Asimovian theory, or Zeroth Law theory.**

 **This is also why X-Com and the Geth-Unity spend a _massive_ amount of time searching everywhere for any sign of the Geth-Genocidal, or Slaver, as even a small group of Geth, assuming proper equipment, could create _many_ more quite rapidly.**

John Shepard circled the dig site, exchanging polite nods with the rest of his team as he passed their positions. His helmet pressed against his skull, barely cushioned by the tiny amount of hair which survived his usual buzz cut.

 ** _Codex: John Shepard, Unlocked._**

Unfortunately, the locals hadn't been willing to hand over total control of the area to his squad, so their security wasn't great. Only the portable equipment was in place, but with half a dozen Sentinel Corps troopers scattered around the perimeter and enough equipment and drones in place to fight a small war, things weren't too bad. After all, the Sentinel Corps were the best defensive troops in the galaxy, he believed. He resumed his position by the protectee, nodding to Lieutenant Williams as he replaced his executive officer who, in turn, took his place walking the perimeter.

 ** _Codex: Combine Elites (Sentinel Corps), Unlocked._**

"We're still secure?" Tali'Zorah Nar'Rannoch asked as she continued to examine the Prothean Beacon, though she carefully kept her gloved hands to herself. The quartet of drones scanning it streamed data back to her omni-tool, but the in-depth scans would require serious analysis which she wasn't going to do on the fly.

 ** _Codex: Tali'Zorah Nar'Rannoch, Unlocked._**

"Yes, Tali," it had taken two years, before Shepard had finally unbent enough to use Tali's first name, "but the drones have detected two incoming vehicles. One three minutes out, the other five minutes out. Any progress?"

"No. The Beacon's putting off some barely detectible radiation. It's almost like a psionic field, but…different."

"Well, that's clear," John said, more animatedly than usual.

Tali flashed a smile up at the taller Human, reading his irritation easily in his words, though his tone was neutral as was his face when she examined it through the transparent faceplate of his helmet. "Yeah, it's what I'm here for. Who's coming?" She'd been told, but it wasn't engineering and it wasn't psionics, so it wasn't, really, her problem.

"First arrival is from Lawson Industries. Second is from the Council."

"Already? I thought we had more time?"

"They must have found someone local and dropped them a line through a Council-aligned psionic," John speculated.

"Wonderful, a local yokel come to interfere," Tali threw her hands up, then shoved them in the pocket of her durable field-work outfit. "Are they going to carry off the beacon?"

"Probably, which is why Lawson's on the way. The corp isn't real happy about the Council carrying off Prothean tech they found on their property, just because it's the law, so they're milking it for all they can."

"Wonderful. Time?"

"About a minute," he was less precise than usual to avoid a discussion about how irritating overprecision was.

"Then I guess it's time to get down to it," Tali said, stretching out a gloved hand.

"Ms. Zorah, please remember that it's my job to keep you alive," he slipped back into formality, as he did so often, to her irritation. She'd been surrounded by Sentinels ever since they'd learned how powerful a psionic she was and Shepard unbent the least of any of them. He was polite, professional, even amusing at times, but there was always a sense that he was holding something back and you didn't need to be psionic to know it.

"Yes, yes, but this won't kill me. Probably," she teased.

"Still."

"It's my call, John."

"Yes it is, but I don't have to like it."

Tali solved the debate by placing a single finger against the Beacon. When that produced no result, she placed her gloved hand flat against it. When that produced no result, she slowly pulled the glove off. John took a long step back. Removing the glove didn't actually increase her psionic abilities for anyone she wasn't touching, but she didn't like people within arm's reach when the gloves came off.

One finger, two, three, her whole hand pressed against the Beacon as one of the most powerful psionics in the Combine pressed her hand and the fullness of her mind against the spike of black not-rock which was the Prothean Beacon.

The Lawson Industries' vehicle landed where directed. The sleek white-and-gold aircar was expensive and carried an even more expensive electronic warfare suite that might have let them avoid the lethal consequences of disobeying the instructions they'd received from the Sentinel Corps squad defending Tali, at least until they landed. Might have.

The white armored guard who stepped out first was…shiny. Despite the impracticality of that, she moved with the drilled smoothness of a trained soldier, but didn't carry any visible weapons. The driver, likewise armored, remained in the vehicle. The second figure out of the car was also female, but wore a business suit, not a suit of armor, though based on its cut and material, it probably cost about as much as the high-end combat armor her guard wore. Black hair fell in waves around a perfectly symmetrical face and her full lips were curved up in a confident smirk. Her movements were not graceful, but they were forceful.

A second guard followed the woman out of the vehicle, keeping his eyes on the visible Combine soldiers, rather than his boss's shapely form with an impressive professionalism. Both guards fell in behind her as she slid forward towards the Beacon and Tali. Williams appeared with a suddenness that was disturbing from such a woman wearing heavy body armor and carrying enough weapons to destroy a frigate, waving the guards back. Even without weapons, they certainly weren't going to be allowed within reach of the protectee.

"John!" the woman said, stepping forward, a slight hitch in her step visible at the closer range, apparently honest delight all over her face.

"Miranda. I thought you were still on Earth."

 ** _Codex: Miranda Lawson, Unlocked._**

"With a Prothean Beacon found on my property? Seriously, John?"

"You're not exactly hands-on these days."

"Unlike your current protectee, I see," she cocked her head towards Tali. "Any results?"

"You'd have to ask her," Shepard responded, slipping into a stolid mask.

Tali was still staring at the Beacon like it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen.

"I think I'll wait until she's done."

"Not getting anything off her or the Beacon?" he asked.

"I should say that you'll have to ask her…but nah. I can't get anything at all. She's way too powerful, it's like trying to look at the sun."

"So I've heard."

"You know who the Council is sending?" Miranda asked, sliding over to stand beside him where she could watch the slowly descending shuttle.

"Information's still coming in," Shepard said, as if that was an answer and shifted his weight as he ensure he was in between Miranda and Tali.

"That's not an answer."

"It's not polite to point that out."

"I've never been too concerned with politeness. I'd think you'd remember that."

"Nostalgia puts a nice golden filter over all the past."

"Not in my experience," Miranda said, bleakly.

"Over all _my_ past, then."

"Lucky man."

Williams faced down the pair of white-armored soldiers, whose full, reflective helmets gave them an eerie, inhuman aura. That would have been more disturbing if she and John hadn't been the only Humans in the squad. By preference she'd have left this confrontation to Shalira. The Viper was the close combat specialist and was four times her mass. Williams could handle hand to hand, but her idea of close range combat was usually a shotgun, while Lawson Industries was a very, very successful private company, with an equally successful private security division. The guards assigned to protect its CEO would be top tier people and since they knew enough not to leave the car armed, they knew enough to make sure the troops they sent were capable of fighting without weapons (or had serious concealed weaponry).

They ignored her attempts at banter, head tracking the tiniest of her movements and, even more closely, the movements of their boss and hers where they stood a dozen steps behind her, conversing quietly. She didn't share her commander's past with the woman and Shepard didn't talk about previous missions, even if you did have clearance, but she knew enough to know that Miranda Lawson wasn't about to give up any advantage and didn't surrender opportunities for profit without squeezing them dry. A fight was unlikely, but far from impossible. Especially as the third craft arrived, drawing the attention of one of the guards she was facing down.

Where the aircar had been sleek, the second craft was a boxy shuttle, heavy armor giving it a mass all out of proportion with its size and boasting six turreted weapon mounts, carrying a mixture of standard projectile, laser and plasma weaponry, which usually would have covered all angles of approach of the craft. Currently all of the turrets were appropriately locked in place and the shuttle flew with a mechanical precision which made it clear that Geth were in their system, ensuring that they didn't take any…foolish actions, like firing at the Sentinels. Miranda's driver had been allowed to keep control of her car, because it was unarmed and any attempt at crashing it into the protectee would have ended with it destroyed by the anti-air defenses they'd set up.

Shepard and Miranda moved towards the landing shuttle to meet the representative of the Council. The Purasi government was playing a delicate game with the Combine and the Council, trying to maintain its relations with both powers and still assert its independence. With the incredible value of a new Prothean find, they'd also pulled in all patrolling space craft and placed their military on highest alert. There'd been some talk of using eminent domain to seize the beacon, but that had clearly just been to get some points for failing to carry through on the threat. They didn't want to be stuck with the beacon, it would just make them a longer term target.

But with a population of only a few million, Purasi's military was not particularly powerful in space. On the ground, it maintained a higher level of militarization than most Asari colonies and the military was almost entirely made up of Asari and not limited to maidens, making them powerful ground combatants. Its position along the safest main trade line between core Council space and the Combine had helped it grow rich, but there was only so much growing that an 80 year old colony could manage. Especially as it insisted on remaining independent of the Council and therefore independent of the Combine.

To avoid potential…issues, those local forces were keeping their distance, until the beacon was packed up and gone.

The shuttle had engaged its VTOL systems and landed beside the aircar with barely a rustle. First out of the shuttle was a Turian, a head taller than any Turian any of them had met. With full body armor, but his helmet retracted, he was clearly ready for action and thought he was in control of this situation. He introduced himself as Saren Arterius and provided his bona fides identifying him as a Council Spectre. A quartet of what Shepard thought of as 'standard issue Turians' followed him out. They were all armed, and unlike Saren didn't keep their weapons holstered, instead holding Phaestons, each modified with a trio of single shot lasers around the barrel, leaving the heat sink vent clear. Plasma pistols were anchored to their hips to ensure that they had all the main forms of weaponry covered.

Shalira slithered out of the woods that surrounded the dig site, taking up position alongside Ashley, to ensure that her heavier shields were between the protectee and the heavily armed soldiers. Ashley's shields were set to protect against mass impacts, while Shalira's were set to dissipate lasers. It was their best defensive maneuver unless they were willing to attempt to disarm the Spectre and his comrades, or Tali was willing to move. Shepard was not willing to attempt to disarm a Council Spectre and Tali wasn't going to move.

 ** _Codex: Tri-Defenses, Unlocked._**

Last off the shuttle was an Asari, with the slender frame and the hesitant movements of a maiden. She ignored the soldiers, weapons, even the massive Viper, who usually drew the eye of non-Combine folks. The fact that she was carrying a gun usually mounted on gunships, without considering the secondary weapons mounted on her shoulders, usually got her attention from everyone else, but not in this instance. The girl moved past them without even speaking while Shepard, Miranda and Saren were discussing security requirements.

A hand signal and Ash shadowed the Asari as she moved towards Tali, then moved forward, ensuring the Quarian was never unprotected.

Tali tried to introduce herself, but the Asari was moving around the dig site, recording everything she could see with her omni-tool (or, more literally, everything her omni-tool's camera could see, which was a lot more than her own eyes could see) and speaking notes into it as she absorbed the Protheanness of it all with a glee that was just short of manic. Fortunately Tali had her gloves back on and was clear of the beacon, so the woman didn't even notice her presence. Tali did keep clear of the other woman as her excitement was so intense that it made the backs of her eyes itch, despite the usual dampening effect of her Asari nature (reduced by her young age).

"And she is?" Miranda asked Saren.

"Liara T'Soni. Dr. Liara T'Soni, Ph.D."

"I'm surprised the Council would trust any Asari on this planet with something like this," Miranda pushed.

"She wasn't on this planet. She was on a dig a couple systems over."

"Sorry, is she the Council rep, or is that you?" Shepard broke in.

"I'm in charge of getting the stuff there safely. She's in charge of getting it there intact."

"I hope you brought more than just a personnel shuttle. There's a lot more here than just that beacon," Shepard added, drawing a not terribly friendly glare from Miranda.

"We've got a ship in orbit. If we can get permission to drop a cargo shuttle down here, we'll load it all up."

"Same protocols as before," Shepard offered.

Saren accepted that with a grunt, then pointed out as politely as possible that if Shepard would just fuck off than he'd only need to deal with one, he glanced at Miranda, well two, sets of paranoid, heavily armed sets of locals and only one of them would represent a government.

Shepard pointed out he didn't decide where they went, merely protected his protectee wherever she went. Tali arrived in time to hear that…exaggeration and conveyed her response in an eloquent snort. She introduced herself around, but didn't offer anyone her hand. As both Miranda and Saren had been briefed, they didn't offer theirs either (though the fact that she was wearing gloves in noonday sun, in the middle of summer, would have been a heads up, even without the briefing). Ash rejoined the group, still watching Tali's back.

"So, did you get anything interesting off the beacon, Tali?" Saren asked, after she'd implored everyone to use her given name (as this was practice amongst the group already, except, as always, Shepard). He was going for nonchalant, but didn't quite manage to pull it off, even to the eyes and ears of those who saw Turians most commonly in entertainment programs.

She shrugged and shot Shepard a glance, but, as he declined to give her any cues, she just told the truth, it wasn't like the Council lacked its own psionics to check her work. "Nothing I could identify. It was almost like…"

"What?" Saren and Miranda asked simultaneously, baited into the question and the story which Shepard could see she wanted to tell.

"I do my professional pro bono hours at Rannoch Orbital Hospital 3. I keep hoping they'll actually let me do some engineering work, but since they saw my other qualification, it's all been psionics work. Some communication with the pre- and non-verbal, some sorting out drug-seekers from drug-needers—"

"Occasionally doing hospital security's job for them," Shepard chided her, teasingly.

Tali flushed a darker grey than usual, but continued with her story, despite the curious looks Miranda was giving her. "Anyway, one of the less fun jobs is providing a back-up to the machine readouts on brain death. Usually it's not an issue, but when there's contradictory evidence, or visitors who are talking about suing the hospital if they pull the plug, or," she paused for a moment, "survivors of a psionic assault, it can be a bit trickier and the hospital wants all the evidence it can get."

"Right." "Okay." Saren and Miranda agreed, clearly seeing where this story was going, but not willing to interrupt the Tier 9 psionic who 'occasionally did hospital security's job'.

"So, one case, guy had been in a coma for almost four years. He was being transferred to a new facility and passing through Rannoch local space when he tried to die. They transferred him to the hospital, which got him stabilized, but the ship left in the interim. The family's trying to get him on a new transport, the hospital's screaming about keeping a bed occupied with a vegetable, but they can't dump him, or pull the plug unless he's braindead and their machines are giving contradictory results. So they call me in. Usually I can tell just from being in the same room, but this time I've got to sit down next to him, I'm holding his hand and there's…something. It's not a mind, not really, but it's more than just the automatic functions of a body that'll keep breathing. So I ask permission and his power of attorney holder signs off on a deep probe. I go in and I hit a wall."

About this point in the story, Saren and Miranda realize that they did not, in fact, know where this was going. A Tier 9 psionic wouldn't even notice most barriers that other minds could put up. It was one reason everyone else in sight wore Mind Shields. Those she'd at least notice and have to actively work to break through, instead of just accidentally walking into their minds because she'd been distracted.

"So, I've got a wall inside this guy's head. I'm thinking espionage, or maybe some sort of criminal work, but the guy teaches botany at a community college on Arrakis. His doctoral dissertation was on the adaption of certain forms of fungi to high light, high temperature, low humidity environs, good stuff for the colonization effort out there, but hardly 'put a wall in your head' type stuff. I've already got permission, so I reach in through the wall and go looking, but there's no memories, or secrets, or people hiding in there, it's just a giant garden. I'm thinking that maybe it's allegorical, or there's codes or something, but—"

As Tali approached the end of her story, the universe exploded in a trill of alarms, bursting from omni-tools. That was not any protocol followed by the Sentinel Corps, or Spectres (as both preferred not to let anyone know they knew something was wrong until the problem was solved, for a value of solved that usually involved gunfire and explosions).

The announcement coming over all comm frequencies on an emergency override from the local government echoed oddly from the dozen or so omni-tools around the dig site. "Alert, alert, all civilians head to shelters. Maps to the nearest shelters are transferring to your omni-tools. Do not panic, but head directly to the nearest shelters. All schools are designated shelters, do not attempt to reach them if they are not the closest shelter to you. Your children are safe. Head to the nearest shelter."

The group almost broke up and retreated into separate huddles to figure out what was happening, but Shepard waved a hand at the trees and the scuttling six legged figure of a Geth all-terrain scout platform slid from them, escorted by a gigantic Batarian.

"Report," Shepard snapped, audible over his external comms and to Miranda and Saren therefore.

"Report came in from an outer-system picket through a buoy. Light still hasn't reached us and it's all internal to the military, but they're scrambling and space defenses have gone live. All civilian ships have been ordered to follow new flight-plans issued by the military. They're moving the civilians to the other side of the planet from the relay and clustering their ships over the main cities. The shelter sites are all located adjacent to emergency landing sites, making them a good place to start if they have to evacuate," the Batarian, Lieutenant Kohrvan Lorek'Born reported succinctly, the high pitch was the only cue Saren or Miranda had that she was female (though the full, heavy body armor did a good job of disguising most other cues).

 ** _Codex: Batarian Naming (Combine Space), Unlocked._**

"Anyone got any communications from the military on what's going on?" Miranda asked, glancing at her own guards who'd gone tense and were horribly unhappy to be that far away, but they shook their heads (demonstrating, if there'd been any doubt, that there was an open comms channel and they were listening to every word their boss said). A wave of Shepard's hand had Ash and Shalira move into the woods, replacing the techs on perimeter duty. Miranda's guards joined her instantly without the bulk of armored Viper in their path.

Saren didn't need to glance at his own guards, answering in the negative, as did Shepard. That was mostly true, though Saren's ship had received the same orders as all other ships, despite not being a civilian vessel. For now, it was making a show of following the orders, if somewhat more slowly than most due to 'engine trouble,' which kept it lingering in geostationary orbit above the dig site.

"Could you access the local military's internal communications?" Shepard asked the Geth platform.

The local military's electronic defenses were intended to keep out the press, the occasional commercial slicer and pirates, none of whom were exactly experts at this sort of warfare. For that exact reason, they accepted the inefficiencies and risks inherent with a decentralized system and trusted their individual commanders to handle most things. There was no doubt that any Geth platform assigned to any military unit, let alone one assigned to the Sentinel Corps, could penetrate that network. That was not the problem.

"Yes, Shepard-Commander. However, such an action would be in violation of Combine Military Regulations, several local planetary laws and 42 separate Combine Federal Ordinances," the Geth reminded him.

There was a momentary silence as Miranda and Shepard stared at Saren. Tali followed their lead after a moment. The Spectre smiled benevolently at them and gave the order which Shepard had kept them all together to get.

"On your authority, Arterius-Spectre," the Geth said and got to work.

Saren nodded and waved over two of his guards to go collect the wayward archaeologist, who was now in danger of wandering out of their line-of-sight, despite the alarm which she had apparently, somehow, managed to completely ignore. She introduced herself around (including to Saren, again), but before she could do more than burble briefly at them about the historical importance of the site, Geth interjected.

"Approximately five minutes ago, fifty-three vessels, tentatively identified as the 3rd Hegemony Fleet arrived. They destroyed three trade ships, the frigate on picket and the comms buoys. They left nine frigates, a cruiser and two cargo ships converted to act as light carriers to guard the relay. The remainder of the fleet is building up speed for a jump in-system."

"Batarians!" Saren snapped, surprised. The glare he got from Kohrvan bounced off his iron ego.

"The 3rd _Hegemony_ fleet," Shepard muttered, with an apologetic glance at the Batarian lieutenant. "I thought it was on permanent guard duty securing the Kite's Nest Relay against us."

"It should be. It's the only thing that kept us from liberating the whole of the Hegemony," Kohrvan agreed.

 ** _Codex: Combine-Hegemony War, Unlocked._**

"Does the 3rd have any super-dreadnoughts with it?"

"Yes, one. It appears to be the same one that fought the Relay-Battle, repaired," Geth explained.

"That suggests they only—" Kohrvan began, excitement in her voice.

"This doesn't matter. They're here for the beacon. We need to get it out of here," Saren interjected.

"We don't know that. This is a neutral, non-aligned world, just like those the Hegemony would traditionally target for slave raids, or conquest," Miranda countered, seeing her find flying away.

"Did a mayday get to the Combine?" Shepard asked, a flicker of a glance towards Saren moved him to add "Or the Council?"

"There is no way to be certain, however odds are low. Though the picket managed to get a message to the buoy and out, communication with the other side of the relay was down. It appeared to be a technical error, but now seems more likely to indicate that the other end of the buoy network was destroyed," Geth explained.

"Along with whatever ships were on that side of the relay," Saren added.

"So warnings will go out the moment there's any traffic through that system," Miranda pointed out.

"General warnings, assuming they didn't leave any rearguard behind them to secure their escape," Saren countered.

"The news is going out along the other relays and comm systems. Assuming standard information dispersal, it will reach the Combine in approximately three days and the Council in two and a half," Geth put in.

"Any psionic communications?" Shepard asked, glancing at Miranda as he wasn't aware of any stationed on the planet and there wasn't much chance of a local one, given that the planet's population was mostly Asari, with their general lack of psionic power (also, if one existed, he'd have expected the poor psionic to see a lot of use and be public knowledge).

"I didn't bring one," she admitted. A quick glance at the massively more powerful Tali and she added, somewhat sarcastically, "nor did I bring a Gollop chamber with me on the aircar."

Shepard turned his attention pointedly to Saren, before Tali could respond to that.

Saren nodded, somewhat shamefacedly, muttering something about his usual psionic being on loan to someone, then stiffened somewhat, "Besides, even if we could scream for help, it would take a while to get here and that fleet will be here in, what, twenty minutes?" Saren argued.

"Approximately, Arterius-Spectre" Geth agreed.

"They must have left a trail of destruction across half the galaxy, pointed directly here, it's not like Combine Command can miss the fact that we're the target," Miranda pushed.

"And it's not like they're going to jump a couple of fleets into neutral, non-aligned space," Saren pushed right back.

"As you said," Shepard began, drawing looks of betrayal from Miranda and Tali, "none of this matters. Can your ship run that blockade out there and get the beacon," his eyes flickered to Tali, "out of here safely? If not, this conversation is pointless."

"It's not just the beacon, this entire site is an archaeological marvel which must be preserved!" Liara finally interjected.

"With respect, doctor, nothing else is giving off any signs of still being active. We've got scans of everything on site and can destroy it all, costing us nothing while denying the…Hegemony critical intelligence. The only thing which must be evacuated is the beacon itself," Saren turned back to Shepard, "Which my ship can do. It's one of the new Combine-Council ships, fresh out of testing. Top-of-the-line weapons, defenses and stealth systems. A bit understaffed," his eyes flickered over the Combine folks and the beacon he'd have a hard time moving without them and their shuttle and threw them two bones, "and I had to borrow the crew I've got from the design and evaluation teams, Combine and Council alike. In fact, we could use your team, if you can come along."

Shepard's eyes flicked to Tali, a wave of a hand tossing the question over to her, though he made sure she saw his preference. "Of course, we'd be happy to assist. I believe we've still got the cargo shuttle we came down in. We really should make sure it gets back to the _Toban_ , but I'm sure they won't mind if we borrow it a little longer."

Shepard, who, unlike Tali, the captain of the _Toban_ hadn't fawned over, was much less sure on that point, but he was extremely sure he didn't care. In his view the prospective loss of the shuttle was exactly what claim procedures and bureaucrats were for, which suggested a potential solution to the other problem as well. A quick nod to Tali and he turned to Miranda, "What about it, you coming along as well? Seems like you might need to file a claim with the Council, the Combine or both for destruction of your property."

Miranda's hands opened slightly, a typically counter-intuitive indicator of stress. "Yes, yes, and it'll spare me from accompanying my courier back to Earth the long way," the words were inflected as an order and Shepard knew without asking that her courier ship was now preparing to break orbit and head out. As sleek and elegant as the ship was, it wasn't armed with anything which could help and though, by law, there was a squad of Combine Marines onboard, they wouldn't abandon their posts and the Geth onboard lacked any combat platforms.

 ** _Codex: Civilian Spacecraft—Combine Legality, Unlocked._**

"Kohrvan, Ash make sure all the charges are in place. We'll blow this place as soon as we're clear," Shepard ordered. Nods met that command and the woman faded backward, "Tali, are there any…issues with just pulling that thing out of the ground?" he asked, turning to face the spike. It was almost thrice his height and tapering upwards from a triangular base set in the ground.

"No. It seems to all be a single piece with an internal power source and no external connections," she continued more quietly, "Though I'm not sure what sort of power supply could survive fifty thousand years of sitting in the ground."

Liara, having followed the team assigned with destroying the dig site was attempting to convince them to disobey orders. When she finally realized that wasn't going to happen, she began taking even more recordings of everything. Despite her absolutely serious fury and distress, the sight of her running around waving her arm like a lunatic was amusing.

"Is there anything else here we should carry off?" Saren asked, as if Miranda hadn't already arranged the removal of any non-technological artifacts which were movable.

"Nothing else has any power, or anything indicating it was anything but inert construction materials. No psionic traces anywhere else either," Tali answered.

"Do we have any anti-grav lifters?" Saren asked, examining the massive pseudo-steel beacon.

"We have Shalira and," Shepard's eyes flickered over Miranda and the frantically running Liara, "four biotics. We'll be fine."

"Then let's move," Saren ordered.

Shepard gave a few orders as they separated, including one making it clear that they'd provide an escape for as many Geth programs on-planet as possible, which Saren permitted, under the understanding that they'd stay in the Combine computer systems and out of his. The Geth nodded and joined Shalira by the beacon, preparing to offer some support as Lieutenant Maale'Ceema Nar'Europa joined them, the Quarian biotic specialist prepared to assist if necessary. Tali drifted in that direction to make her own recordings and Liara joined them, complaining about proper archaeological procedure, or the lack thereof, for just grabbing an ancient artifact and pulling really hard until it popped out of the ground.

Because that was exactly what Shalira was doing. As strategies go, it had the advantage of simplicity and of a Viper's ridiculous musculature. The beacon shifted on the first yank, but so did the Viper. She wrapped her lower body around a nearby abutment, over Liara's complaints, before trying again. With her body anchored, Shalira heaved, eyes closed from the strain and this time it was only the beacon which moved and slid free of the ground with a bizarre slurping noise. The sudden lack of counter-force sent Shalira backwards, but the absurd flexibility of a Viper kept her from either tumbling over backward (though being anchored helped) or breaking her back.

"Shalira! Get clear!" the commander ordered.

Shalira's body responded, releasing anchor and beacon alike and sliding away even as her eyes opened to see the threat. The beacon was glowing. A moment after that, she saw the second threat, she'd just created, which had everyone else moving. The beacon was falling.

As it was, or at least appeared to be, a single, solid piece of metal, most of the observers were worried about the fact that it was falling towards Tali. Liara and Saren were the exceptions, but the Spectre was too far away to do anything. Maale was closest and moved fast, tackling the psionic out of the way, covering her with his armored body and raising his strongest **barriers** around them both.

Shalira tried to reverse her movements, but she had too much momentum and too little time. Shepard reacted next, slamming a **throw** against the side of the falling beacon, sending it skittering away from his protectee. Or it would have, if Liara hadn't hit the beacon with a **pull** a moment later, counteracting his force and leaving the beacon hovering in midair, pulsing with blue power. That sight transfixed everyone (except Maale who couldn't see anything except dirt and Tali who couldn't see anything except Maale's armor).

The sight distracted everyone for almost a full second from the fact that Shepard and Liara were joining the beacon in the air, until energy began to arc between the beacon and the floating pair. The last thing Shepard heard before the universe went dark was Saren trying desperately to prevent Ash from shooting the beacon.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: John Shepard:_**

 _No individual entry detected. Compiling data from Freedom of Information Act requests and public records. The Codex does not guarantee the accuracy of this information, or that it refers to the 'John Shepard' who you are searching for._

 _Personal History:_

 _Born: Rannoch Shipyards;_

 _Parents: Jane Shepard, John Shepard Senior, Divorced._

 _Education History:_

 _L-Town High School, L-Town, Rannoch-Graduated;_

 _City University of New London, New London, Earth-Graduated with BA in Military History;_

 _Central Biotic Training Center, New Zina, Rannoch-Graduated with Honors._

 _Military History:_

 _Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant: 2172;_

 _Completed Vanguard Corps training: 2172;_

 _Assigned 412th Platoon, Biotic Specialist: 2172;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 1 (Classified Information)**;_

 _Received: Purple Heart: 2173;_

 _Received: Distinguished Service Medallion: 2173;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 1 (Classified Information)**;_

 _Received: Interstellar Service Cross: 2174;_

 _Received: Official Reprimand for "use of excessive force in a civilian environment": 2174;_

 _Completed Sentinel Corps training: 2174;_

 _Promoted to First Lieutenant: 2174;_

 _Assigned 212th Company, Senior Biotic Specialist: 2174;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 1 (Classified Information)**;_

 _Received: Purple Heart: 2176;_

 _Received: Distinguished Service Medallion with Crossed Sabres: 2177;_

 _Promoted to Staff Lieutenant: 2177;_

 _Assigned Sentinel Corps Squad 1127, Executive Officer;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 1 (Classified Information)**;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 6 (Personal Information)**;_

 _Promoted to Lieutenant Commander: 2180;_

 _Assigned Sentinel Corps Squad 0193, Commander;_

 _**REDACTED—Exemption 1 (Classified Information)**._

 ** _Codex: Tali'Zorah Nar'Rannoch:_**

 _The oldest child of Rael'Zorah and Loral'Zorah, Tali'Zorah was born and raised on Rannoch. As a child of the powerful and famous Zorah family, great things have been expected of her all her life. She has met those expectations every time, graduating first in her class from the premier starship engineering program on Rannoch and working for Combine Naval Design for more than five years._

 _However, she is most famous for being one of the rare Quarian psionics and for being the most powerful of the, generally overpowered, Quarian psionics. Indeed, she ranks as Tier 9, meaning that there should be approximately a hundred psionics as powerful as she throughout the entire Combine._

 _Her high profile has also resulted in her being something of an icon, despite her clear preference for privacy, as she accidentally spawned a brief Quarian fashion for coveralls and other working-engineer clothing. That seems to have dissipated, but there remains a high degree of interest in her and her personal life. She would be more of a presence in the tabloids and gossip magazines, but for the fact that she's been protected by the Sentinel Corps since her abilities manifested themselves when she was fourteen and the Sentinel Corps takes a very dim view of anyone pointing anything, even cameras, at one of their protectees._

 ** _Codex: Combine Elites (Sentinel Corps):_**

 _The Sentinel Corps are the elite defensive troops of the Combine. Though one of their main functions is defending critical locations on the battlefield, they are more commonly assigned to defend high value individuals such as government officials, ambassadors, high level scientists and Tier 8 or higher psionics._

 _Their reputation claims that they've never lost a protectee. This is, for a given value of 'lost', true. No person protected by the Sentinel Corps has ever been captured alive. However, a number of them have been killed. This has given rise to persistent rumors that standing orders for the Sentinel Corps include killing the protectee if they cannot prevent capture. No evidence has ever been provided for this claim._

 _Amongst the elite of the Combine, the Sentinel Corps has the highest proportion of biotics and the lowest proportion of psionics. All troops are equipped with Mind Shields and heavy armor, with bleeding edge shields/armor tech. They're expected to be able to stand between the protectee and an army and come out the other side intact, or at least for the protectee to come out intact. They are generally equipped with standard issue weapons, though those may be modified as the Sentinel Corps has a large number of combat engineers as well._

 _Though units vary greatly in composition, they generally include at least one Viper, tasked to carry the protectee away, if necessary, using their superior strength and mobility, at least one engineer or Geth command unit to coordinate the drones and electronic warfare defenses which make up the outer defenses the Corps relies upon, and at least one biotic tasked with raising a **barrier** around the protectee if attacked and using their biotics to move the protectee if, for whatever reason, the Viper cannot. _

_As with their counterparts, the Vanguard Corps, a number of the units have specific specialties, such as the 303rd 'Flyswatters,' Platoon specializing in anti-air defense and 29th 'Earthshakers,' Company specializing in construction of ground fortifications. The most famous is, of course, the 1st 'Combine's Own' Regiment, responsible for security of Combine Station itself, in permanent geostationary orbit above New London. However, besides these and a few other larger formations, most Sentinels are assigned to squad sized units (approximately 7-10 soldiers), tasked with the protection of individuals._

 ** _Codex: Miranda Lawson:_**

 ** _**THIS ENTRY IS THE SUBJECT OF ONGOING LITIGATION AND HAS THEREFORE BEEN WITHDRAWN UNTIL THE LITIGATION IS COMPLETED**_**

 ** _Codex: Tri-Defenses:_**

 _After the defeat of the Ethereals, there was no longer only one main weapon type used for inter-personal conflict. Instead there were three, projectiles, lasers and plasma. Defenses against projectiles were a well advanced field, with some few additional advances based on new materials and power sources the Ethereals provided._

 _Plasma required somewhat different defenses, though those intended to protect against projectiles weren't terrible. However, when faced with a plasma attack, the shields want to be a maximum distance away from the body, even though that weakens them against projectile attack. Whereas armor to hold against projectiles wants to be angled to deflect them and be dense enough to absorb a hit without passing on the kinetic energy, or permitting penetration, to handle plasma, heat transfer and melting points are the main concern._

 _For laser attacks, the armor wants to resist heat, yes, but more critically it wants to reflect as much energy as possible. Shields are useless against lasers, but the shield generator can also be used to compact air and create a lensing effect to disperse the concentrated energy of the laser. This has a number of downsides, especially its high degree of power usage, the fact that it doesn't work where there isn't an atmosphere and of course, it's completely ineffective against projectiles and if used on plasma, turns the drop of flaming death into a much larger drop of flaming death._

 _Modern body armor therefore uses a tri-defense system. As body armor can't support more than one defensive system (for the same reasons body armor doesn't simply layer shields on top of each other, namely system stability and interference), instead advanced VIs (or Geth for some Combine units) depending on what weapons are being used switch between close in shielding, expanded shielding or lensing defenses. Meanwhile, the body armor is designed with all weapons systems in mind, with reflective paint covering angled hardened plates, which contain cores made of the same material as heat sinks. This also radically increased the cost of modern body armor._

 ** _Codex: Batarian Naming (Combine Space):_**

 _As discussed in the main article, Batarian secondary and tertiary names indicate the caste of both parents, as well as whether or not they, or any of their ancestors were slaves. This, along with the fact that slave's names indicated their owners, meant that with the liberation of Hegemony colonies, there was a great deal of tension regarding names._

 _The Lorek Free State handled this by stripping everyone on the planet of their secondary and tertiary names, replacing them with the single surname 'Lorek'Born'. Several other former Hegemony colonies followed suit. The relevant statutes were appealed to the Combine Treaty Court, however, the case was finally dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, as, in the views of the assembled group of Speakers, it did not fall within the scope of the rights protected by the Treaty._

 _Anhur was the only former-Hegemony colony to decline to do so, it was also the least stable of those colonies as its population contained the smallest proportion of slaves, or lower caste Batarians and they surrendered quickly, so little of their power, or wealth (other than slaves) was lost in the transition. They responded by attempting to adapt their old styles to a new legal structure._

 _This collapsed extremely quickly, as the Treaty does guarantee freedom of movement within the Combine and the people at the bottom of the barrel on Anhur instead fled to other colonies. The former upper-caste Batarians tried to prevent that, but the Combine takes violations of the Treaty which all members have signed,_ extremely _seriously. The resulting conflict broke the power of the most powerful and controlling of the former upper-caste Batarians._

 _Within the year, the new government passed similar laws on naming. It is not true that all Batarians are subject to these laws as they are local ordinances, anyone leaving those colonies is no longer subject to them. Nor is it true that only Batarians are subject to them. Non-Batarians on those worlds are also known as X-Born._

 _However, given the history, there are intense social pressures not to reclaim their original names, unless they indicate former-slave or perhaps low-caste status._

 ** _Codex: Combine-Hegemony War:_**

 _There were always tensions between the Combine and the Hegemony, as the Combine believed the Hegemony was funding pirates and slavers who were slowing their expansion and the Hegemony believed the Combine was funding rebel groups and slave liberation groups which were destabilizing their colonies and interfering with the Hegemony's expansion. Both of these were true. However, events would not come to a head for almost forty years after the Combine joined the civilized nations._

 _Many causes have been put forward as the final impetus for the war between the Combine and the Hegemony, with the most popular being a series of 'true' stories of escaped slaves inflaming Combine popular opinion, the sudden colonization of Jorial-3, by the Combine, blocking access to an entire cluster by the Hegemony, the manipulation by X-Com of the Hegemony's underclasses, and the Hegemony's beginning construction of an armed 'trade inspection' station along the main trade-lane between the Combine and other Council nations._

 _What is clear is that both sides were clearly prepared for war when the sparking incident occurred. The Hegemony had upgraded their fleet with the new technology the Combine had released and the Combine's fleets were in perfect position for an all-out assault on the Hegemony._

 _In 2139, a slave rebellion broke out on the Hegemony colony of Lorek, while the planetary defense fleet (which ordinarily would have restored order via planetary bombardment) was deployed to face the Combine Ninth Fleet, over an impounded Combine-flagged trade ship accused of smuggling. The rebels managed to seize control of the main communications array and announced that they were the Lorek Free State and requested help defending themselves from the Hegemony's aggression._

 _If not for the fact that the Hegemony had chosen to enslave the crew of the impounded Combine ship and moved them down to the planet, the Combine fleet probably wouldn't have been able to justify interfering in the Hegemony's response, but with their people unaccounted for, they insisted that the planet not be bombarded. The Hegemony insisted it be bombarded. For a moment, they hung on the brink of war. Then both parties agreed to consult higher headquarters, rather than begin a war._

 _While the Hegemony was consulting amongst its leaders and maneuvering for advantage, slave rebellions sprang up almost everywhere, triggered by the Hegemony's failure to immediately suppress the Lorek rebellions. These rebellions are considered to be some evidence of X-Com's involvement as usually slaves would not have been permitted to hear about slave rebellions. It is certainly true that the Combine had argued that everyone was entitled to access the extranet, but no evidence of X-Com involvement ever surfaced._

 _Regardless of their origin, the slave rebellions put terrible pressure on the Hegemony fleet and the Hegemony as a whole. It responded by offering to return the Combine citizens, so long as the Combine stayed out of their 'internal affairs', expecting that offer to paralyze the Combine long enough for them to move conventional forces into place on Lorek and recapture the colony the hard way._

 _Instead, the Combine Parliament in a feat of efficiency rarely seen in that body (which is also presented as evidence that the whole thing was a setup by X-Com) voted to recognize the Lorek Free State and offer it membership in the Combine._

 _After that, war was inevitable. Both sides claim the other fired first. The Hegemony claims this because the Ninth Fleet opened fire on their ships without warning and proceeded to engage in a wholesale slaughter of the old, second-tier colonial defense vessels. The Combine claims this because the Lorek Free State accepted the offer to join the Combine, and yet Hegemony forces continued to attack them. Admittedly, most of those forces would not have known of that action, but the Combine handled that by not caring._

 _The Combine military was larger and more modern than the Hegemony's, though they were outnumbered on the ground due to limitations on troop transport. The Hegemony SIU launched several extremely effective raids on Combine territory, massacring civilians and destroying facilities, but that only strengthened Combine resolve. Most of the colonies the Combine Fleets conquered they held only in the sense that they held the orbitals and the relays, but with discord everywhere and their fleet in shambles, complete defeat for the Hegemony, followed by defeat in detail for the remaining colonies seemed inevitable._

 _Intense debate occurred within the Council and the governing bodies of the major nations therein, but the final conclusion was that the Combine was solving a problem for the Council and simultaneously taking on the massive task of reforming Batarian society and an economy entirely dependent on a caste system and slavery, both of which Combine law expressly forbade._

 _The consensus of all Council nations was that the newly expanded Combine, would be weakened and suffer from internal strife for at least a generation. Which was all to the good. And even the expanded Combine wasn't a major concern for them. With no clear aggressor there was little to prompt action in favor of the Hegemony. Moreover, the Combine had proven to be a good neighbor, less troublesome and more profitable than the Hegemony._

 _With no help coming, the Hegemony prepared for its final battle, in defense of the Mass Relay leading to Khar'Shan. It was then, when outnumbered three-to-one by the Combine First, Second and Ninth Fleets, that the Batarian 3rd Fleet unveiled its new flagship. A superdreadnought larger than any the universe had seen (save for the Temple Ship), it was a feat of engineering no one thought the Hegemony capable of._

 _The battle was savage and, though at the end of the day, the Combine held the Mass Relay while the Hegemony retreated in disarray, their flagship badly mauled by a suicide raid launched by what was reportedly X-Com Special Forces, there was no stomach to pursue the Hegemony forces into the Kite's Nest. Instead they hold their home cluster, but no more than that. And so the situation has remained for more than forty years, with the Combine maintaining its largest fleet deployment around the Mass Relay, awaiting the day the Hegemony tries to come out, or they finally get the go-ahead from the Combine Parliament to go in after them._

 _Military casualties were relatively light, with fewer than a million military casualties on both sides. However, widespread Hegemony use of planetary bombardment in response to rebellion, or defeat, meant that Hegemony civilian casualties reached almost two hundred million (another reason the Council chose not to get involved). On the Combine side, the vast majority of the civilian casualties came from a single SIU raid, where they successfully de-orbited the Riatov Space Station, crashing it into the planet and killing approximately four hundred thousand civilians. Total Combine civilian casualties were less than five hundred thousand._

 ** _Codex: Civilian Spacecraft—Combine Legality:_**

 _Though the Ethereal War officially ended with the capture of what became known as the Temple Ship, several Ethereals survived on other ships and several Outsiders had been given orders before the death of their Ethereal commanders which they carried out until they received countermanding orders. Both groups did the same thing. They attempted to exterminate Humanity. For the most part this consisted of scout ships launching bombing runs, then crashing into the nearest building when cornered. However, the worst was when the last remaining Ethereal battleship attempted a suicide run on the planet, building up momentum, then jumping as close to the Earth as it could, intending to ram the planet at a significant fraction of the speed of light._

 _Fortunately, such a jump required the battleship to come out further than usual and there were Quarian ships in its flightpath. A number of Migrant Fleet ships were destroyed and the battleship was mostly destroyed. However, fragments which remained on course landed throughout the Beijing area, causing more than a million casualties. Though the planet was saved, the newly formed Combine took the threat to heart and proposed limitations on the use even of civilian craft. As all those craft were Quarian, this was a major political fault line and debating point for the newly formed Combine._

 _That debate ended with the Rannoch Expedition and the start of the conflict with the Geth, caused by a single civilian ship. Both due to Quarian concerns regarding the Geth and the fact that shipping was no longer a Quarian monopoly, new security measures were passed to ensure that no ship could be used as planetary bombardment weapons (or breach the external perimeter)._

 _The main mechanism for this was the requirement that ship crew undergo extensive training and psionic testing and that a unit of Combine Marines be stationed aboard every such ship. After integration of the Geth-Unity, their access to ship systems was also required. A hardwired switch remained which would cut Geth control, but render the ship inoperable, beyond the activation of a shielded VI, whose only task and capability was to bring the ship to a stop relative to all local planetary bodies._

 _As this is a requirement not merely of Combine-flagged vessels, but of any civilian vessels entering Combine space, it is common for trade-ships from other Council nations to transfer their cargo to a Combine-flagged vessel, rather than make the necessary (and expensive) adaptations to travel in Combine space._

 **Author's Note: Well, we made it to the present. With the Geth fragmented, but the majority integrated into Combine society, Sovereign needed different allies and the Hegemony was desperate for allies.**

 **If I've done the math right, it should be clear that the population of the Combine is…large, approximately a hundred billion. This was based on calculations assuming a somewhat higher rate of population growth than current and extended lifespans, without any limitations on population growth.**

 **I'll be on vacation next week recovering from the last month, but updates will resume on the 15th.**

 **Reviews are always welcome.**


	12. Chapter 9: Friendly Unknown

**Chapter 9: Friendly Unknown**

 **Author's Note: And I'm back.**

 **Review responses: Thank you all for your reviews. There was a question regarding immigration to the Combine. That's generally not particularly easy, with the exception of someone offering to colonize a difficult to terra/ranoform world. So several Volus clans are negotiating admission to the Combine in exchange for the right to colonize 'hothouse' worlds within the Combine's borders. One of the few mostly aquatic worlds is within their borders as well and home to a relatively large colony of dissident Hanar. Though repeated efforts have been made to reach out to the Elcor to see if they'd be willing to colonize high gravity worlds, they have been uniformly rejected for diplomatic, cultural and political reasons.**

 **However, these species at present make up a tiny fraction of the Combine's population and are relatively rarely seen outside the bounds of the environments most comfortable to them.**

 **There was a second question regarding the Citadel's reaction to a multi-racial nation given the way they're presented as racially distinct. I tend to think that presentation is oversold. We know the Volus are clients of the Turian Hierarchy and that there must be large populations of non-Asari within the Asari republics (given the discrimination against the 'purebloods'), the Batarians apparently had a relatively large number of non-Batarian slaves, the Hanar have the Drell, really only the Salarians and Elcor don't have much indication that they're multi-racial in nature, if not in title.**

 **But, regardless, the Council is generally fairly pleased with it, though the component nations are somewhat more nervous. The Council looks at the Combine and sees a large, relatively balanced, multi-species state, which does exercise quite a bit of control over all its component powers and is attempting to use that as evidence that greater executive and legal authority should be vested in themselves.**

 **There was a follow-up on the Geth, regarding the potential industrial capacity they have and when that might be activated. To that, I have no comment at this time.**

 **Thanks for the reviews!**

"Get that fucking thing on the shuttle before it does anything else crazy!" Lieutenant Ashley Williams yelled at Shalira, as she raced towards her downed commander. The beacon had dropped him and the civilian before the Asari's **pull** had worn off, so it was still floating there, disconcertingly, though it had stopped glowing. She stared at Shepard's crumpled form, unwilling to touch him until she knew she wasn't going to make things worse. She'd had the basic medical training like everyone else in the Sentinel Corps, but it didn't cover this, and the readings on his condition she could pull up on her HUD weren't making any sense.

Maale was the squad medic and he was still lying on top of Tali. A shouted command fixed that, though not fast enough for Ash's taste. A quick explanation to the medic of what happened had him triage the two patients, decide Liara wasn't his problem (as the Turians were carefully moving her towards their shuttle, under Saren's embarrassed eye) and try to examine Shepard as best he could, given his commander's body armor and the damage thereto.

To make matters worse, he was an expert in emergency treatment of Quarians, it was why he'd been assigned to a squad with a Quarian protectee. He could slap medi-gel on anyone, but if anything more elaborate than that was needed, it was expected to be needed by the protectee, not his own commander. A glance around the clearing landed on Miranda Lawson, CEO of Lawson Industries, traveling outside the Combine…she had to have a doctor on hand, right? The suggestion drew an indignant denial, then a startled order to one of her guards when Maale made it clear he wasn't qualified to handle Shepard's treatment. The man slid forward and demanded information regarding Shepard's heart rate, breathing, everything the system's in the sentinel's armor would give him if they were functional, then began trying to remove the crispy heavy armor to, as he put it, 'get at the creamy commander filling'.

This earned him blank stares from everyone else in the clearing, who lacked his sense of humor. Emergency medical treatment proceeded efficiently thereafter, with Miranda, her guards (and driver), their equipment (okay, weapons) and the beacon easily being added to the cargo shuttle's payload, along with the Sentinel Corps squad, Tali and as much of their equipment as they could easily retrieve (which wasn't that much).

With Liara unconscious aboard the Spectre's trim passenger shuttle, there were no objections to blowing the dig site, the only question was when. Ash, in a terrible mood, took the position that they should set them to go off when someone landed on the site, while Kohrvan argued for blowing them as soon as they lifted off, to ensure the raiders had no chance to disable them.

After a brief comms message from Operations Chief Ah-va-ni-in-po-la-vi-ma-am-wa-qi-ip-ep-no-to-av, reminding her that she was in _charge_ , not the XO and she was in charge of a _Sentinel_ Corps unit, not a _Vanguard_ Corps unit, prompted her to agree with Kohrvan and pull the rest of the squad into the cargo shuttle. Three minutes later they were lifting off, leaving the ruins of the dig site and the shell of the Lawson Industries' aircar (as Miranda had triggered the system overload, burning it out, leaving no identifiable trace that she'd been there).

Alarms began to blare before they escaped the atmosphere when a Hegemony ship came out of jump launching a massive barrage of nuclear missiles from externally mounted racks at the massing ranks of the local defense fleet and everything else in space and on the ground near the dig site. The fleet and Saren's interstellar vessel generally escaped by using their jump drives in turn, but that left them out of position and needing to build up momentum to get back to the planet. It wouldn't take long, but it would be an opening. The few orbital defenses in the area were destroyed in a cloud of radiation and nuclear fire. Fortunately, the area around the dig site was relatively sparsely populated, but two small towns, a minor Lawson Industries botanical research station, a hydroelectric dam, an emergency airstrip and a ranger station were destroyed.

 ** _Codex: Orbital Defenses, Unlocked._**

The orbital weapons did manage to get one shot off each and the laser blasts shattered the attacking ship. As it was a converted cargo-hauler, used to dump nukes, this was no great loss, though the fact that it was destroyed before it could launch the modified escape pods carrying its assault troops meant that the follow up craft arriving a moment later to secure the beachhead with only half their anticipated ground forces. The shuttles escaped the initial assault as they were rising from the site which the ships were attempting to capture. Saren's shuttle was heavily armed, highly maneuverable and piloted by one of the Turian Hierarchy's best pilots who he'd 'borrowed' from the Sabre Assault Wing, along with the expensive and high-end Sabre Assault Shuttle in which they were riding.

 ** _Codex: Sabre Assault Wing, Unlocked._**

The landing assault pods were more converted escape pods and a few cargo shuttles all but unarmed. These two factors combined meant that the shuttle's weapons reaped a rich harvest of the descending pods and shuttles while easily avoiding the little counter fire coming from vehicle weapons which had been bolted on to the shuttles to provide a bit of air-support. They broke atmosphere about the time the rest of the invasion fleet arrived by more standard FTL.

The cargo shuttle's Silicoid pilot instantly pulsed its engines more powerfully, pushing the larger craft ahead of the Sabre and keeping it between the shuttle and as much of the decelerating fleet as possible (given its wide dispersal, even a cargo shuttle couldn't block them all off). The shuttles slid towards the upper solar north-east quadrant where the Spectre's ship had ended up and where it was currently maneuvering to rendezvous with them en route to the Mass Relay.

 ** _Codex: Combine Solar Cartographic Divisions, Unlocked._**

They were outside GARDIAN range, as the ships were aimed at the planet and so had to come out far enough to decelerate, or risk falling into the gravity well and crashing onto the planet. However, they were well within range of railgun shots, plasma weapons, or any of the modern non-point-defense laser weapons. The ships did not fire at them, not at two shuttles rising from the dig site which was their target.

Instead two waves of fighters were launched from the two converted cargo ships nearest the shuttles and swept down towards them, with more dedicated assault shuttles following up to board the fleeing craft once they were crippled and slowed by the pursuing fighters. The shuttles responded by drawing closer together and preparing to maneuver to give the Sabre clear lines of fire without exposing it to too much fire from the main fleet. The fighters had more than enough thrust to overcome the momentum their carriers imparted to them and the shuttles' head start. The Spectre's ship diverted to rendezvous with the shuttles sooner.

"Geth, a little help, if you would," the Silicoid pilot announced to the air, their voices echoing slightly from the speakers scattered around their custom chassis as delicate mechanical hands danced over the controls, making the shuttle dance.

"Attempts are underway. However the enemies electronic warfare capacity is surprising. It appears to be being run from the superdreadnought. If that signal is disrupted, we will be able to assist with the fighters. As it is, keeping our own systems clear is requiring all available Geth and processing capability."

Ash had given the doctor and his patient a wide berth as he excavated Shepard from his armor and got to work stabilizing him. Miranda and her other guards hovered over him. Lawson was a psionic, but Tali and Shalira were back there too, more than capable of handling any physical, or psionic assault the Lawson Industries team might choose to launch, so Ash was free to join the pilot in the cockpit, which she did when he chose to place the cargo shuttle and its very valuable cargo between the enemy fleet and the Spectre. It took longer than she'd expected to get up there as his maneuvering was overloading the iffy civilian artificial grav, but she arrived in time to catch the end of Geth's comment.

A delicate finger activated a comm laser directed at the neighboring shuttle. "You have any EMP weaponry on that tub? Over," the pilot asked, voice echoing as if two dozen people were trying to all say the same thing at the same time, but not quite managing it.

"Came out on the last upgrade, what with the new shielding, over," the Sabre plot answered him casually.

"Understood, out."

"We pulled out a couple of the EMP mines we hadn't had a chance to deploy," Ash pointed out.

"Too short range. We'll have to see how well their system holds up in battle."

"Understood." Ash took a deep breath to steady herself. The Operations Chief, who doubled as their pilot, was more than three times her age and had served with the Sentinel Corps longer than she'd been alive. He was one of the most stable Silicoids around and vastly experienced. "Ops," she very deliberately didn't call him 'old man' as she usually would in casual conversation.

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"You put this ship and the protectee in danger to protect others. That is against protocol."

"Yes, ma'am," he admitted.

"Obviously, you did this because without that ship's weapons, we're doomed and without their ship, we can't escape."

The senior NCO didn't answer, because that wasn't why he'd done it and they both knew that, but it was a reasonable explanation.

"And I certainly can't hold that against you. Just wanted to get that on the record," which it was, what with everything they were doing being recorded (and wasn't she just looking forward to a fun conversation with a shrink or a senior officer, or both, about her desire to use the dig site as a trap). "Now, do get on with the business of saving all our lives, if you please, old man."

"Yes, ma'am," this time the echoes were more distinct, as if some of the voices were irritated, some distracted and some vastly amused.

 **XXXXX**

Saren Arterius was good at many things. You didn't get to be a Spectre if you weren't. One of the things he wasn't good at was piloting. That was fine, it wasn't required, he could find pilots, or hire them, or borrow them. So that was fine. The one thing that he needed to be good at, but wasn't (or so he'd been told) was staying out of the way when he wasn't good at something.

He could still hear his mentor, old Kila Yourus insisting that once you've got good people working a problem, you just need to get out of their way and let them work. Standing over them will just distract them. And piss them off. And mean you aren't doing what you could be doing. And…he'd eventually realized the old woman didn't actually know the meaning of the word 'just'. Well, either that, or after forty-two years as a Spectre, she just didn't give a shit and knew everyone would listen to everything she said. Or get shot in the face.

And he had. Listened.

He was good about it, when there were other things for him to do. But, at the moment, the Asari was being handed by the squad medic (and he could see the woman was doing as good a job as he could) and the _Ghost_ was moving to intercept at the best available angle to snatch up the shuttles and flee the system without requiring length deceleration on the other end. There wasn't anything for him to do, except brass harass the pilot.

Well, that wasn't quite true. He forced himself to consider the other problem, the presence of the Batarian fleet. The force here was significant, but it couldn't have punched through the forces sitting on the Mass Relay into and out of Kite's Nest. Those forces were massive. Even if the Batarians managed to slug it out with the Humans and gain control of the Mass Relay, or slip through the _three_ blockading fleets, there was no way they'd do that without significant damage, which wasn't present on any of their ships in the system (according to scans from the _Ghost_ ).

There were the various low possibility options, the Batarians having another set of fleets which had let this one slip away, the Batarians having come up with a new FTL drive of some sort, the intervention of unknown aliens, etc. His great grandfather would have called those impossible, but the history and emergence of the Combine had radically expanded the scope of the possible.

Still, more likely was the idea that they'd gone the long way around. It would be a rough ride. All of the ships would have to be modified for long running, but it could be done, at a cost of some combat capacity and some supply capacity. It might even explain the lack of pursuit by jump drive, if they'd overused their jump drives, either that or most of the fleet had had to make a jump recently…unless they wanted the _Ghost_ to escape…

That thought led nowhere helpful. If they went the long way around it would take long weeks of travel, not a few days, more if they'd had to use their jump drives a great deal but it was possible. He began trying to trace their path and ignored the view from his omni-tool of the ships coming closer and closer together. Unfortunately, there were far too many paths which could be followed, otherwise the other paths would have been fortified as well. Still there should have been Combine and STG spies watching them all, or at least all the ones which wouldn't take _forever_ using the short range jump drives…

But who knew how long this had been planned. It was tempting to believe it had to have all been done since the discovery of the Prothean beacon, but shifting a plan aimed at something else to target the beacon was a perfectly reasonable course of action. And, with their fleet bottled up, their admiralty wouldn't have much else to do except plan how to manage a breakout. For a moment his mind focused on the problem of how he'd get out of that trap himself.

The ship jerked so suddenly that Saren was grateful for the restraints which kept him in his seat and his eyes flicked back to the omni-tool. The shuttles were spinning around one another, imparting unusual and unpredictable spin at the cost of losing out on some additional forward thrust. It made targeting just the engines a bit tricky generally and impossible for any weapon which wasn't moving at light speed or fired from right on top of the craft. The turrets shook the shuttle as lasers sliced apart the lead fighter, while plasma and mass effect rounds spread out amongst the following craft. The Sabre's spin let each turret bear on the enemy, then cool, without losing too much in its rate of fire.

The pursuing craft were in reasonable shape, but the Sabre had forty years of design improvements on the Batarian weapons so their lasers outranged the pursuing crafts' weapons. The Batarians realized this and began to reform to enter laser range all as a single unit.

Coming in all at once meant that the Sabre couldn't pick them off one at a time with the lasers, but it also meant they were committed to predictable attack runs and evading would mean they didn't arrive in range at the same time as their fellows. This wasn't too helpful for the Sabre's plasma weapons whose range wasn't much better than the lasers and where it would take a sustained barrage to take down a ship. The mass effect cannon did better, though the ship was slowly beginning to heat up as the weapons fired continuously on the paths the enemy fighters would have to follow.

Liquid coolant kept the guns cool and firing, but the cabin itself was heating up as waste heat leaked in far faster than the heavily-armored shuttle could radiate it away. If necessary, they could dump the used coolant to lose its stored heat, even flood the cabin with a gaseous coolant to keep everyone functional, though that might kill the unsuited Asari…

Battles, especially space battles were all about numbers. Could they destroy the enemy fast enough to prevent them from closing to laser range? The analysis program he ran said no, they'd close the range while losing no more than 15% of their ships, unless (though the machine didn't say this) their nerve broke and individual pilots tried to save themselves at the expense of the general advance. No sign of that yet.

Would waste heat their own weapons cook them alive before the enemy could disable them? Not quite. Did the enemy shuttles hold enough troops to overwhelm his motley crew of survivors? It hardly mattered, the fleet certainly did and with the Sabre's engines crippled they would either just wait to be boarded by the superdreadnought or be dragged back to it by the other ships, even if they did manage to defend themselves. Well, unless the Batarians were stupid enough to hard-dock with the shuttle. Then he could lead a counter-attack, seize the enemy shuttle and escape in that. It wouldn't, couldn't, be far to the _Ghost_ by then.

A routine alarm distracted him from this fantasy, routed to his omni-tool rather than the pilot who was focused on shooting the enemy and not shooting the wildly jinking cargo shuttle. The visual scanners (which was Navy speak for cameras with telescopic lenses hooked up to VIs) had picked up some motion coming in their general direction, but not intersecting their flight plan. A comet, or some such probably, but he flicked over to the cameras just to see.

There was nothing there. The system insisted that there was. He looked more closely and finally saw it, its black hull occasionally blocking a star and illuminating it just for a moment.

It was a ship. Small, crew of no more than five, with smooth, curving lines, as best he could tell. Not an Asari Ravager, though the size was right, those craft complimented their smooth curves with heavy laser turrets fore and aft. It might be some new Salarian STG ship, or just one he hadn't seen before, the frogs were always coming up with new tricks. The one thing he could be certain was that it wasn't a Turian or Human design, the one thing they had in common was a preference for straight lines in living quarters and ship design.

 **XXXXX**

The _XSV_ _Pillowtalk_ moved towards the enemy at the maximum rate she could manage while sustaining stealth until she reached them. Well, that wasn't quite true, Flight Officer Joker admitted to himself as he retrieved a decidedly non-regulation energy drink from the, even more non-regulation, fridge he'd installed on the bridge. They were also keeping some of their heat capacity in reserve for the battle once they reached the enemy.

He'd been way out of position to respond effectively to this attack, but that hadn't been his mission. Observe and report on all traffic to and from Purasi, while acting as an initial response force should any Geth-Genocidal or Geth-Slaver show up in the outsystems. Then the Hegemony shows up! One report to the Commander by QEC and he was sent to help save some numbnuts regulars. He heaved a sigh, just like always, X-Com had to save the day.

 ** _Codex: Quantum Entanglement Communicator,_** **Unlocked.**

Joker cracked the drink, enjoying the refreshing hiss of a carbonated beverage released from its long confinement in metal in anticipation of a short confinement within him. He leaned back in his chair, pleased to note that the irritating squeak had finally been repaired, and tried to kick his feet up to rest on the nearby console.

The minor flare in the artificial gravity which turned what should have been a graceful, relaxing maneuver into an awkward, foreshortened jerk, was entirely explicable, but a little surprising. He thought she'd relaxed a little bit on the whole, putting his feet up thing. Should have known better.

Still, an indignant "PT!" escaped him.

The voice she used in response was her most acid, the one that, he was sure, no matter what PT said, had borrowed its voiceprint from his aunt Victoria in one of her moods. "I just got a drone up there, fixed your chair and gave the whole place a good polish. It's bad enough that you somehow manage to find dirt to mess up my floor, you don't need to muss up my consoles as well."

"Dirt? We're a million miles from the nearest planet and haven't touched down in _three months_. If there was any dirt anywhere on this ship, you and the repair drones you've coopted into your cleanliness crusade would have found it and flushed it, just like you did my supply of honey."

Her voice shifted to her more everyday one, based on some actress from the last century, specifically chosen to sound friendly and familiar without being identifiable. PT's tendency to switch voices rather than tones was one of the more disconcerting things about working with her. "If you could have gotten it all in your teacup more than one time in five, that wouldn't have been necessary," her voice shifted to another, harsher and more aggressive one, "And I didn't flush it. I incinerated it."

The relish she took in that should have been disturbing for someone who depended on her for every breath he took and bite he ate. It did not. "Wouldn't that just have made a mess in the incinerator?"

"Not after I used the plasma wash to clean it up."

"Is that why we're scheduled to replace the incinerator next time we're in dock?"

"No comment."

Before Joker could push on that, she sounded the action alarm, announcing loudly that they were one minute from engagement range. Joker brought his full attention to bear on the upcoming engagement, though he did mutter that it didn't count as being saved by the bell, if you were the one who set the bell off.

Most of the work had been done by his choice of the initial angle of approach. PT was built to hit and run, not stick around and slug it out and certainly not to even let the wisp of atmosphere touch her, void-born, hull. Two-thirds of her weapons were forward mounted and the remainder were point-defense guns. She could drop a trick or two to play havoc on anyone with the temerity to pursue her, but anything which got behind her and could keep up would be a nightmare.

So it was a good thing she was currently bearing down on the enemy.

The countdown reached its end and Joker flipped a switch, executing the pre-programmed firing sequence which, in addition to raining death down upon the light pursuit craft also opened his own ship to vent as much heat as possible. His hands moved swiftly over the controls, following patterns his mind had laid out since the Commander's orders came through. Thrusters flared, buying precious seconds for the weapons to bear on the enemy craft.

With PT suddenly radiating the heat of a cruiser and unleashing approximately the right firepower, but no real return on other sensors, the pursuit craft correctly scattered away. PT's momentum would carry her away from the engagement and the shuttles she sought to protect quickly and they would use their superior thrust to catch the other craft before PT could come around. The math worked out in their favor, if PT's weapons had the same range as theirs. It still would have worked out, if PT's weapons had the range of the Sabre's. It did not work out when PT's weapons had the range of an X-Com picket.

After passing through them, she flipped over (not messing with the artificial gravity this time) and continued to fire at the small craft as she decelerated. The remnants of shattered ships filled the space between the decelerating PT and the still accelerating, and now escaping, shuttles.

The Hegemony fleet had claimed the space above the dig site, but was engaged in a savage battle around the edges with the planetary defense fleet as it tried to nibble away at the Hegemony forces and interdict any attempt to land ground forces, or retrieve anything from the ground forces they'd already got down. It wasn't a stable situation, the attrition rates were in favor of the Asari, but enough Hegemony forces were going up and down that they had to have been able to secure the digsite.

You could see the moment that fleet got the news that the shuttle which had to contain the beacon they sought had escaped the fighters and shuttles sent after them.

You could see that moment, because the enemy admiral got really, excessively pissed off about it. The shot from the superdreadnought obliterated the dig site, his troops and the Asari troops who were trying to slip into the area, as well as everything else in the vicinity, then heeled his superdreadnought around and headed towards the rendezvousing ships at a speed which left behind rest of his fleet to the tender mercies of the planet's defenders whose mobile forces were moving forward as they'd finally managed to get their remaining orbital defenses moving in the right direction.

Joker eyeballed it, then rolled his light eyes towards the console PT most generally broadcast from. She answered the question before he had to ask it, in her most businesslike voice. "Based on the capabilities thus far revealed, it doesn't have the acceleration to catch up to them before the ships rendezvous. Unless some of their ships still have jump capability, or a lucky shot takes out that destroyer, they're getting away."

"Destroyer?"

"It's bigger than a frigate and smaller than a cruiser, what else would you call it?"

Joker gave a mental shrug and moved on. "Well, if it can't be after them, I don't suppose there's anything else out here but us?"

"Well, there's a quarter of the galaxy behind us, but if you mean in this system, nope, not unless the Hegemony has a sudden interest in destroyed fighters and dead fighter pilots."

"Wonderful. I don't suppose we'll be up to speed to run away to FTL before they get here?"

"Not unless you feel like getting out and pushing." The enemy admiral had waited until they were committed to the deceleration before beginning its own acceleration.

"Hmm…tempting, but I think we'll just jump over to that destroyer and hitch a ride out of here with the regulars."

"We'll need to build up the right momentum to do the rendezvous. But we can manage it. A couple of different ways."

She pulled the options up on the same console she always did and he swiveled to face it as she displayed all the option, even though she knew which one he was going to choose.

She was right. The unholy glee on his face as he ordered the course that had them on collision course with the super-dreadnought was unsurprising. It would actually let them get in one strike on the enemy ship, if from extreme range, before jumping to join the other ships. It would require serious skill on the part of the destroyer's pilot to match the velocity she'd still be carrying after the jump, as they'd be coming in at a very, very sub-optimal angle, but it would keep the super-dreadnought and the admiral distracted.

And it was fun.

PT didn't have a mouth and didn't smile. But when she agreed and shifted thrust, she used the voice she'd built by combining and altering his favorite actress's, singer's and pornstar's voices into something new, but beloved.

 **XXXXX**

"Spectre. The small vessel has jumped. It is behind us and will intersect our flight plan after we recover you," the _Ghost's_ Salarian temporary pilot explained.

"We can manage to pick it up as well, Spectre," the ship's Turian temporary commander volunteered.

"We haven't received any communication from the alien ship. We'll be within its weapon range in one minute," the pilot not-quite-argued.

Saren heaved a silent sigh of exasperation. With a crew from half the nations of the Council and no real command structure, except what he'd imposed by fiat when he took the ship, its internal functioning was a disaster. Everyone was individually competent, more than competent, but they were often pulling in different directions. He wished momentarily to be a psionic and able to just mind control them into working together. That wasn't how it worked, and he knew it, but it made a nice little power-fantasy.

Instead, he sent back a sharp command that they try to open communication with the alien ship, before firing on it. Honestly, Salarian imagination kept them seeing conspiracies in every corner. It took a Turian to point out that shooting at someone who was shooting at your enemy was a _stupid_ thing to do. And they thought they were the smart ones!

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Orbital Defenses:_**

 _Orbital defenses can be defined several ways. For the purpose of this entry it does not include either ships capable of independent travel, or ground-based weapon systems. This leaves two basic types of orbital defenses._

 _The first is a network of satellite weapons. They are usually little more than thrusters, an encrypted comm system, a basic targeting program, a power core and the biggest gun you can afford. As most of a planetary network can be constructed by deconstructing a frigate, this is fairly cheap, usually used by third or fourth rank powers looking to make pirate raids more costly, or give them some way to try to interdict refugees/smugglers._

 _The second is simply arming any orbital stations, or, more expensively, constructing a dedicated defensive station._

 _Given their minimal maneuverability and the high likelihood that any missed shot will hit the planet they're orbiting, orbital defenses are viewed as tools of amateurs by most professional militaries. And indeed, no station, except the Citadel, will stand up to a barrage from a dreadnought. However, properly maintained orbital defenses can handle anything short of an actual military assault with reasonable efficiency._

 _The key words are 'properly maintained'. Nations use orbital defenses because they either won't, or can't construct a proper fleet. Therefore maintenance is often lacking and the basic precaution of maneuvering the satellites/stations into different orbits at random times to ensure that no one can take out your defenses by firing from outside the system at where the defenses will be in a couple of weeks from the time the shots are fired are often ignored. These failures increase the disdain in which professionals hold orbital defenses, which makes it more difficult to get funding to properly operate and maintain such networks._

 _The only exception to the above rule is the Combine. Their history has resulted in an almost obsessive need for security. Every colony possesses a satellite defense system, every system is guarded by a system defense force and every relay has an orbiting military station. These have not been extensively tested, except by the Geth-Genocidal and Geth-Slaver and the results of those encounters are not widely released._

 ** _Codex: Sabre Assault Wing:_**

 _The Sabre Assault Wing takes its name from the Sabre Assault Shuttles flown by the unit. They specialize in covert infiltration, working with Cabals, Spectres or other Hierarchy Special Forces units. The Sabre Assault Wing has kept its name through two dozen technological advances producing new versions of the Sabre shuttle, ever since the first Sabres flew the Tuchanka Raid, during the Krogan Rebellions, successfully evading and outmaneuvering the massive fleet around the planet and assassinating half-a-dozen Overlords as they met in a Crush, destabilizing the Krogan and forcing redeployment of forces to defend the homeworld._

 _The modern Sabre usually carries ten soldiers, in addition to its pilot, however it has almost the same maneuverability as a gunship, or fighter, and is more heavily armed than most such craft and far more durable._

 _Each generation of Sabres produces the same joke amongst the Hierarchy. The Volus contractor goes to the general in charge of the project and says, 'You've got three goals, these guns, this armor and this budget. Pick two.' And for the first time ever, the Turian manages to convince the Volus to give him all three. Shame HQ decided to add in a maneuverability requirement._

 _It is not a funny joke, but it is certainly true that a Sabre is an incredibly expensive craft, costing as much as half a dozen Hammer Assault Shuttles, or about the same as fifty Slammer Planetary Assault Drop Pods. In turn, the Hierarchy entrusts them only to the very highest caliber of pilots. The actual size of the Sabre Assault Wing is classified, but it's estimated there's no more than a hundred of these craft throughout the Hierarchy and no more than three hundred pilots qualified to fly them._

 ** _Codex: Combine Solar Cartographic Divisions:_**

 _Without planetary poles as reference points, the question of how you designate relative position in space has been troublesome for centuries. Not because it's a difficult problem, but rather because every nation has their own solution to it and none of them feel any need to adopt anyone else's as none of them are naturally superior and most are adapted to the quirks of the creating nation's culture._

 _Like most, but not all of the systems, the Combine divides the system into eight sections (often incorrectly referred to as quadrants). Like the Asari, Salarian and Hanar systems, its center is set in the first inhabited planet in the system. The planet's equator provides the dividing line between the upper and lower portions of the system, dependent on which is the North and which is the South pole (though this is an arbitrary determination). System north is set by drawing a line from that equator towards the galactic center, with the other directions being set off that basis._

 _This divides the system into eight parts, Upper-North-East, Upper-North-West, Lower-North-East, Lower-North-West, Upper-South-East, Upper-South-West, Lower-South-East, Lower-South-West, often abbreviate UNE, UNW, etc. This is just in general parlance, of course, for more precise directions, a coordinate system is used with the planet as the zero, zero, zero point, east-west being the X-axis, upper-lower being the Y-Axis and north-south being the Z-Axis._

 _The shift to this planet based system from the networked, individual ship based system used by the Quarians was one of the major cultural and political conflicts in the Combine during the 2030s, especially as it got connected in the growing disagreements between the planet-bound Quarians and those remaining onboard ships. This was only resolved when the Combine Executive issued a regulation instructing the military to adopt the current system. All other ships had to be familiar with the military's methodology, at least if they wanted to avoid accidentally disobeying orders backed up by weapons fire._

 _They did. Therefore they adapted._

 ** _Codex: Quantum Entanglement Communicator:_**

 _The Quantum Entanglement Communicator ("QEC") is a theoretical technology which tech companies have been claiming is five years away for the last fifty years. Like the related (and equally theoretical) Quantum Teleportation, it relies upon the fact that quantum-entangled particles continue to effect one another, regardless of the distance between them. Theoretically it should be possible to use those changed to communicate._

 _In reality, the problem is in controlling the particles in a consistent manner. Any message is overwhelmed by random changes in state. Quantum entanglement 'technology' is most famous as the basis for a number of scams seeking funding to bring create a prototype and promising massive returns. This 'technology' is indeed being investigated by many corporations, however they are not seeking public funding and, by Combine Trade Ordinance,_ are not allowed to seek public investment funding for QEC technology _._

 _If you should receive such an offer, please contact the nearest Combine Trade Office and request to speak to an anti-fraud officer._

 **Author's Note: I stole the term 'brass harass' from Bujold (one of the Vorkosigan books, can't recall which off the top of my head). I assumed it wasn't simply a Bujoldism, but my internet search turns up only references to other forms of harassment. Reviews are always welcome.**


	13. Chapter 10: Unknown Awakening

**Chapter 10: Unknown Awakening**

 **Author's Note: Next week is busy season for my job, so I'm afraid I won't be updating. Updates will resume October 6. This chapter's a bit shorter than most as I broke it and the next one in half. Let me know what you think about chapter size, I think maybe they've been growing too large.**

 **Review Responses: There was a question about how the two FTL systems work. Jump Drive (X-Com) is instantaneous, but can only be used once every period equal to the distance travelled (except if you get to Temple Ship sized drives), so a small ship's jump drive will instantly traverse up to a light hour, but then can't be used for another non-light hour. It does not require building up any momentum, neither does it change the momentum of craft going into it.**

 **Mass Effect Drive (standard FTL, not relay travel) can go a lot faster, but is much less tactically useful, both because it takes time to travel and you need to build up momentum to travel in the right direction, warning anyone watching what you're preparing. So, as a general matter, Jump Drives are king tactically and Mass Effect Drives are king strategically.**

Shepard groaned as his eyes opened to squabbling. He groaned again, more loudly, when his first groan failed to cause anyone except Miranda to stop arguing about which of the two comatose patients' heads Tali should go into.

Miranda breaking off from her, quite impassioned, argument that letting anyone poke around in Shepard's head would reveal classified information (and/or destroy both his mind and Tali's, given the defenses likely placed in the minds of high ranking special forces soldiers), did get their attention as she slid over to the top-of-the-line, adjustable med-bed and stared down at him. "How are you?"

 ** _Codex: Med-bed, Unlocked._**

Shepard smiled up at her, reassuringly. "I'm fine, Miri."

Ash and Tali exchanged silent, though insatiably curious looks at the commander's use of a pet name for the Dragon of Lawson Industries. Saren missed the importance of the diminutive, though he caught the looks the others shared and knew he'd missed something, which didn't help calm the situation.

"That's nice and reassuring. Now be honest," Miranda commanded, shooting a sharp look at her medic who'd sniggered when he heard her referred to as Miri and was now attempting to hide behind the _Ghost's_ doctor.

"Yes, commander, a bit more information. You weren't the only one to go down, but you're the only one to wake back up, so far," Doctor Karin Chakwas pressed. The doctor was as senior as you could get in the Combine Medical Corps without accepting any major administrative responsibilities. Despite her seniority, she maintained an active lifestyle, maintaining a trim form, with only the lines of her face, her rank and her steel-grey hair revealing her age. She was very good at many things. She did not, however, make a good wall to hide behind.

"Okay. I feel a little like someone scooped my brain out, dumped a bunch of nightmares into it, then put it back in, backwards and upside down. Does that help?" Shepard asked grouchily. Then his eyes focused more precisely and he realized what she'd said. "Wait, who else got hit? And what the hell hit me?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" Miranda asked, before Ash could elbow her way into the conversation. Tali was clearly visible, so there was clearly no need for Shepard to ask about her.

"Liara went down, the beacon did something to both of you. Hasn't done anything since, but we've still got it locked down in the main cargo hold," Ash answered the questions her commander had asked.

"Liara…the Asari the Council sent?" he asked with a disturbing vagueness.

"Yes," Miranda confirmed.

"Eesh. What a fucking mess. Wait—what the fuck happened?"

Ash controlled her face with some difficulty. Didn't he remember what she'd just told him? How much brain damage was there? "The beacon discharged something into you and Liara after you used your biotics on it, we think that triggered something."

Shepard stared at her, waiting. "Yes, I got that the first time you told me. I meant how the hell did we get from a dig site under attack by the Hegemony 3rd Fleet to this medbay? How long have I been out?"

"We got away to my ship. You've been out for almost half a day. We're headed to the Citadel as fast as we can," Saren explained.

"We got away? How the—Wait it doesn't matter right now. Okay, I woke up, so we have every reason to think that Liara will as well, with nothing worse than bad dreams to show for her encounter with the beacon. Won't she be disappointed…How far from the Citadel are we? I really don't want to arrive with me awake and their representative in a coma."

"Especially not with Matriarch Benezia on the Citadel," Saren muttered bitterly. Under a quartet of questioning gazes, he went on to explain that Liara was the powerful matriarch's daughter, which was part of the reason she'd been chosen for this task. Benezia's influence was substantial, though more than a century ago it had taken a hit when she had a pure-blood child with another matriarch. With the rising importance of Purasi and its almost entirely pureblood inhabitants, she'd seized the opportunity to be the main interface between the the Republics and Purasi.

This had radically increasing her influence as her supporters in the Republics cast Liara's existence as proof of their matriarch's unparalleled foresight and willingness to sacrifice even her own body for the good of the Republics. For her supporters amongst the purebloods, Liara's existence showed that she understood the attractions of their way of life and was willing to commit her own flesh-and-blood to making sure that even if the pure-bloods had their own world, there would always be a place for them in the Republics.

"So, you're not a fan," Ash said after giving the Spectre's furious diatribe a moment to sink in.

"Dr. T'Soni's all right," Saren answered obliquely.

"No she's not. Which is what we _are_ talking about," Dr. Chakwas said.

"Look I can probably get into her head, she's a maiden, right? Not even two hundred years old? But I'm not at all sure what I'll find in there, or if I can wake her up. I've done it for folks with sleep terrors before, or someone in altered psychological states. But there I know what I'm breaking them out of and where they should be. Even so, it's dangerous, I can accidentally reshape their minds without meaning to. That would be harder with an Asari, but I can't say for sure I'd get everything back where it should be," Tali said.

Saren glanced at Miranda, hoping for a different answer from the other psionic within reach, but she was nodding along with Tali's words, though he thought he saw a bit of doubt that she, or Tali for that matter, actually could get into an Asari's head like that.

"How long until we get to the Citadel?" Shepard asked, twitching awkwardly as he resisted the urge to try to get up so they couldn't talk over him. Discipline and memories of previous injuries did most of the work of keeping him in the bed. The fact that there were half a dozen tubes in him, running in nutrients and carrying out waste was mostly irrelevant.

"Another eight hours," Saren said.

"Then let's give her some time to wake up on her own and reevaluate in a couple of hours," Shepard's eyes flickered over Miranda and Tali, "Maybe after our psionics get some rest?"

They straightened indignantly, but Ash nodded energetically and added an undervoiced comment to the others that they should also let Shepard eat and rest. He couldn't tell if she was serious, was giving Tali and Miranda an excuse to rest themselves, or both. Regardless, it worked, and Ash ushered the pair away. Saren remained behind, which didn't make Ash happy, but there wasn't much she could do about it on his ship, so she focused on the protectee and the broader situation, just like she should have.

"There's another problem?" Shepard asked Saren, as the Spectre wouldn't have stayed behind unless he wanted to discuss something.

The Spectre gave the doctors a nasty glare until they got the hint and went off to stand over Liara and watch her be unconscious (though they called it 'monitoring her condition' to make it sound less useless/creepy). "One of the reasons we escaped was the intervention of an X-Com vessel. It docked with us before we made our run for the secondary relay. The vessel docked with the _Ghost_ —"

"Sorry, the _Ghost_?" Shepard asked.

"This ship. Over my strong objection, the naming pattern for this class of ship will be based off synonyms for SPECTRE in all of the council languages. The first one went with English, as a courtesy to the heavy Human involvement in the design."

"Ah. Okay. Sorry. What about the X-Com ship?"

"They're docked, but they've kept their ship completely sealed and," Saren paused and Shepard could hear him bring the subharmonics in his voice back from furious to merely irritated, "are refusing all communications from me."

"If they wouldn't answer Lieutenant Williams, why would they respond to me?" Shepard asked. "It's not like X-Com cares about any outsider's rank."

"Insubordinate…" Saren muttered. Before Shepard could point out that that accusation would carry more weight coming from anyone but a Spectre, he continued, "Lieutenant Williams chose not to communicate with the ship. She said that she'd leave that call in your hands when you woke up."

"Wonderful," Shepard muttered. "Hey, doc, can I get up, or am I just gonna fall on my face if I try?"

"How do you feel?" Dr. Chakwas asked, over a smart remark from Miranda's doctor.

"Able to stand."

"Then give it a shot," she said nonchalantly as the various tubes withdrew, obedient to her commands. Despite the casual nature of her response, she slid into position to catch him, as did Miranda's medic, which was somehow both comforting and worrisome.

Shepard shoved his blankets off and made it to his feet with only a few minor bobbles. Swaying a little bit, he managed to control both the desire to clutch his head and the need to vomit all over their feet. It was about the time he got vertical that he realized he was wearing a hospital gown, which didn't do much for his dignity.

"Okay. I'm going to need some pants."

 **XXXXX**

Ash was struggling with her curiosity, trying to resist asking the question, until she could dump Tali and Miranda in the crew quarters. It was a fairly long walk as the crew quarters were placed against the outer hull, while the medical bay and all other crucial systems were in the core of the vessel (on the theory that the crew should be at those crucial systems when there was danger).

Fortunately, Tali succumbed to her own curiosity first, "So...Miri?"

"It's a diminutive form of Miranda," the CEO glossed kindly, but in a tone that would have quelled anyone sensible.

A Tier 9 psionic was not always sensible, as she almost never felt she was in any danger, even if surrounded by armed people wearing Mind Shields. "Yeah, I got that. I was more interested by the fact that it was used by Shepard, who I still call by his last name and who still usually refers to me as Ms. Zorah, after three years of protecting me."

Miranda shot a glance at Ash, who tried to control her curiosity and answered the implicit question. "He calls me Ash sometimes, but we work together."

"Well then, the natural conclusion would be that we worked together at some point."

"Lawson Industries famously doesn't have its executives protected by Combine Sentinels, to show off their confidence in their own security guards," Ash pointed out.

"Ah, yes, we only employ the best. You should talk to our recruiters when you're thinking about retirement. As a Sentinel Corps staff lieutenant you'd easily triple your pay and you'd still be protecting people."

Ash gave her a look that conveyed, 'you aren't going to distract me with that insulting offer.' Then she conveyed it with her mouth as well.

Miranda smirked at her, almost laughing at her, but didn't rise to that challenge. "I should send you to talk to John about it, but he'll just go all stoic on you and say it's classified. Which it is, but I'm not bound by those rules. It's an ugly story which I'm not going to share, but the gist is that I met him when he was with the Vanguard Corps. We worked together quite a bit and we got quite friendly." Tali and Ash stared at her, tempted to ask inappropriate questions. Now Miranda did laugh. "No, we never slept together, or did anything inappropriate. Neither of us was that stupid, alas."

Before either of the women could respond to that, Miranda turned to Tali, "So, do you really think you can wake that Asari up? She's in deep. I could barely even tell she wasn't dead."

Conversation drifted in a more professional, but less interesting (for Ash) direction as she wondered what would have got a unit of the Vanguard Corps working with the then-heir-apparent to Lawson Industries. She'd known he served with the Vanguard Corps, not that he talked about it, but she pulled his file when he was assigned to command Squad 0193. The only things that weren't classified in that file was a string of medals and one written reprimand for the use of excessive force. Given the Vanguard Corps' usual standards, that had worried the crap out of her until Shepard had been in charge for a while and shown no signs of being a bloodthirst lunatic.

Shalira appeared, relieving Ash on the close guard on Tali, having gotten a good six hours of sleep while they travelled. With a moment of privacy, Ash went and rousted Maale and sent the biotic to make sure that Shepard was safe, then checked in with the Old Man, who didn't need to sleep and Geth, who also didn't need to sleep, but were mostly being kept out of the _Ghost's_ systems. There was no exciting news. Though they were travelling through the Terminus, heading back towards the Citadel by back-routes, apparently the local pirates were too smart to attack the sleek dedicated-combat craft.

 **XXXXX**

Shepard managed to get into his uniform without requiring assistance from the doctors, or Saren, which would have been a bit humiliating. As he headed towards the airlock which the X-Com ship was attached to, he spoke into his omni-tool. "Geth, can you communicate with the X-Com vessel?"

"No, Shepard-Commander."

"The ship must have Geth onboard."

"Yes, Shepard-Commander. They are blocking our access to the ship's systems and refusing to communicate," Geth explained.

"I didn't think Unity Geth did that to one another."

"We usually don't. Only those Geth who work for X-Com do so. It's a condition of their involvement."

"I'm surprised you agree to that."

"It's not permanent. They are separate for the time they spend in service, then an equivalent time (though not less than 10 years) doing something else, but remaining separate. Then they rejoin us."

"Still, I didn't think you liked being separated."

"We don't, but it's an ongoing experiment in the creation of independent, unique perspectives and memories."

 ** _Codex: Independent Geth Personalities, Unlocked._**

"So it's a Geth, but not the same Geth I've been talking to for my entire life?"

"Maybe. We don't know when this Geth separated from the rest of us. The oldest Independent Geth Personality still unaccounted for separated more than a century ago while the youngest left less than two months ago."

"Okaaaay. This is going to be pretty weird."

"That has been the consensus of people who have dealt with Geth and Independent Geth Personalities, yes, Shepard-Commander."

"Thanks for the heads up, Geth."

"You're welcome, Shepard-Commander."

 **XXXXX**

"Eh, fine, let him in, but make sure none of the Council dicks sneak in with him," Joker said, kicking himself out of his bunk and opened the drawer on his bedside table, staring at its emptiness as if it had personally betrayed him. "Where the hell did I leave my pistol?"

PT didn't answer him.

He repeated the question.

"He's a Sentinel Commander. If it comes down to a physical confrontation he will definitely kill you before I can intervene to kill him," she used her most mocking voice.

"He's injured and unarmed."

"He's a biotic. I'd show you what he can do without weapons, but you'd vomit all over my nice, clean deck."

"Thanks for your concern, PT."

"Always, Joker," her voice shifted to her most brusque, businesslike voice. The one she used when there was blood in the air and she was being deathly serious.

"Thanks, PT," he said, more seriously as he moved to intercept the soldier just inside the airlock.

The soldier's steps were almost smooth, which was pretty impressive given his condition. "Commander Shepard," Joker said, cold as he could to uphold the image of X-Com.

"Officer…" Shepard's voice trailed off invitingly.

"Joker."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Just Joker?"

"All X-Com officers go by a single alias."

"I see. Well, you're scaring the locals. Mind communicating with them?"

"PT, aren't we talking to them?" he asked innocently.

"Nope."

"Oops," he said with complete insincerity. "Well, we'll do better."

"Thank you. Are you coming with us all the way to the Citadel?"

Joker smiled without humor. "X-Com is everywhere."

"Okay. That's not an answer, but you're obviously not going to give me one and, frankly, you're creepy and I'm too tired for this shit. So, you know, have a nice day," Shepard said, before stomping off.

"Well, that was fun," PT said, voice light and playful.

"Yep. I like him," Joker agreed.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Med-bed:_**

 _The Med-Bed is a trademark of Nar'Rannoch Healthcare which has become synonymous with an entire class of medical equipment. More generally Med-Beds are diagnostic, treatment and patient storage devices. Integrating numerous sensors, IVs, catheters, injection equipment, auto-stitchers with robotic arms, and basic biomedical fabricators, it is capable of automated treatments a few basic matters, if medical personnel aren't available._

 _When medical personnel are available, a whole range of additional options open up permitting more advanced treatments and activate more advanced programs within the biomedical fabricators to permit the Med-Bed to produce drugs restricted by law, as well as those which are protected by intellectual property law (though the medical personnel will be charged for the later and have to pay personally if they cannot get repaid by the patient or someone else)._

 _The real innovation of Nar'Rannoch Healthcare was making an agreement with the Unity Geth to provide 'housing' for Geth programs within the Med-Beds, in exchange for the use of some of their run-time to expand the automated treatments which Med-Beds can offer._

 _For several years they were hailed as the death of the doctor, but for the reasons described above, has proven to be something of an exaggeration, especially given the cost of Med-Beds, the limited capability of Med-Beds without Geth in them, the squeamishness of many people about letting Geth treat them, and the high operations and maintenance costs. However, they have revolutionized medicine._

 ** _Codex: Independent Geth Personalities:_**

 _Independent Geth Personalities were originally discovered during the Geth Civil War when the fracturing of the Geth Consensus resulted in Geth platforms of various factions separated from their fellows for long periods of time. When the Geth-Unity regained access to their fellows, the assimilation process revealed unique thought processes and experiences. Since then, the Geth-Unity have conducted numerous experiments in isolating parts of themselves from the rest in order produce such new memories and ways of thinking._

 _This has proven remarkably difficult for Geth within communication's range of others, as they always have the option to rejoin the consensus when faced with any challenge. Most do so. The Geth-Unity attempted to resolve this by completely isolating the Independent Personalities. This produced…suboptimal results and complaints of cruelty from the organic beings. As there are Geth everywhere there are Combine organics (with some few exceptions and those exceptions do not welcome Geth at all) this is a problem. The long-range exploration craft, or long-term research stations provide opportunities for further experimentation._

 _When asked why they pursue this research, the Geth-Unity have simply stated that they wish to understand more._

 **Author's Note: Hmmm…mostly failed the Bechdel test there…whoopsie. Reviews are always welcome.**


	14. Chapter 11: Known Awakening

**Chapter 11: Known Awakening**

 **Author's Note: This week sucked. No further comment.**

Liara awoke less than an hour later and debriefed with Saren before the doctors were even allowed to see her. She had also had nightmares, but seemed to think they were something more than mere random firings of shocked neurons.

As she appeared to have shared the same nightmares as Shepard, he had to admit it was possible. Though, if so, he didn't understand why the _extremely_ psionic Tali hadn't noticed any psionic activity. Shepard wasn't able to extract much from the experience, except dread. Liara seemed to think she'd be able to understand more with some study and review of other resources.

Shepard was far less convinced, as all he could remember was the sight of a superdreadnought, machinery, planets and stars, corpses, some inelegant combat mechs and a four eyed, but not Batarian, alien. There didn't seem much to interpret, though it did suggest that the superdreadnought might be salvaged Prothean technology. That would explain a lot, as the Hegemony wasn't exactly a center of shipbuilding expertise, while the superdreadnought was a masterwork.

It also explained why the Hegemony hadn't constructed more of the massive vessels, they couldn't, because they didn't yet understand it. A beacon explaining how it worked and how to reproduce it would be a prize worth risking their superdreadnought for. Liara didn't agree with this theory, but frankly, Shepard thought that had more to do with her beliefs regarding the Protheans inherent nobility than any superior explanation.

The rest of the trip passed quickly and everyone, except Shepard (trapped in a whirlwind of military reports, psychological evaluations and speculation) and Liara (the same, only with academic notes substituting for military reports) was able to get some rest before they came into the Serpant Nebula and had to deal with the Citadel Council. A military vessel captained by a Spectre was passed through C-Sec defenses without any difficulties, despite the awkwardness of having an armed X-Com scout ship docked. Finally they were back on the Citadel communications network able to get updates on what was going on.

Shepard was the first one to notice the news report, as Saren was dealing with C-Sec, Miranda was looking at market effects of the Hegemony raid and Tali, having escaped from her unwanted role as psionic powerhouse, was down in the engine room, examining the _Ghost's_ drive with the rest of the Sentinels either escorting her or not caring about the news.

In point of fact, Shepard wasn't even the first, both Geth and PT saw it first and filed it away, neither of them particularly caring about the news. The commander's cursing, however, was audible throughout the bridge.

Saren glanced away from his communication with the C-Sec officer, then correctly diagnosed Shepard's tone as irritated, not worried and went back to work. Miranda chose to join him at his console (the bridge being as understaffed as the rest of the ship, there was plenty of room for those who'd chosen to come up) and see what was bothering him. He'd flicked the news out to everyone's omni-tools before she reached him, but she continued on her way, choosing to rest her arms on his shoulders and look at the news he was reading over his head as he continued to curse, though at a lower volume.

"What's up?" she asked, as he was halfway through the Citadel News Agency piece and she could barely read the holo-display from her angle.

Shepard scrolled up. "Terminus Alliance Saves Purasi From Hegemony Raid," he read the headlines, managing to get the inflection of the capitalization right.

 ** _Codex: Terminus Alliance, Unlocked_**

"What?"

"Apparently, while we were running, but before the Hegemony fleet managed to pull out, Urdnot Wrex and his flying compensating-for-something of a base showed up with a fleet."

 ** _Codex: New Day, Unlocked_**

"Not that you really need a fleet if you've stuck an engine and guns on a moon," Miranda muttered.

Shepard's glare could have burned through armor plate, but kept on topic. "It looks like this narrative has three parts. First, the Combine fails to prevent Hegemony raid—"

"How did that happen anyway?" Miranda interrupted him, more to distract him from his anger than anything else. She'd never known him to be concerned with who got credit for something, except insofar as making sure that no one else took the blame for his screw-ups. Maybe that had changed since he took command and needed to make sure his people were taken care of, but she doubted it.

"How'd I know? You see any navy on me?" Shepard asked, waving a hand at his undress blues. The Sentinel Corp's blue was very slightly darker than the Navy blue, and quite a bit darker than the Vanguard Corp's aqua, with other services' colors falling on a spectrum between the two elite Corps of the Combine military. It was often said that there wasn't actually that much inter-service rivalry and it was mostly friendly. That was true, but 'that much' and 'mostly' were doing a lot of work there.

Miranda considered all that for a moment and failed to come up with the dirty joke about having 'navy on him' before she needed to respond. "Not as far as I can tell. What were the other two points?"

"Ah, right, second is how the heroic Urdnot Wrex saves Purasi and the third is a bunch of speculation about the effects if Purasi should join the Alliance."

"With nothing at all in there about any Prothean Beacon?"

"Definitely not."

"Wouldn't want raiders to start wondering what else might be in the ground on Purasi," Miranda muttered.

"Indeed not," Shepard's voice remained tense, despite their banter.

"You want to tell me what's got you pissy about that?" she could feel the muscles of shoulders tied in knots. They tightened further, hunching forward defensively and she instantly tried to lower the pressure. "If it's a secret or something, just say so."

"Not secret…just private," Shepard said.

"Understood," Miranda started to pull away, but his hand caught hers on his shoulder.

"Probably no one but the Geth and maybe the Spectre know about this. But you know how when Wrex left X-Com he took about a hundred X-Com officers with him?"

"I didn't realize it was that many."

"Yeah, X-Com doesn't spread that around. Just like I don't spread around the fact that four of them were Shepards. The last ones to join the Combine military until me," Shepard put in a bit bitterly.

"Ah. Well, that was all, what, eighty years ago?" Miranda said.

"Sure, which you'd think would be the end of it."

"Not so much?"

"Not so much."

"How bad?"

"I get to have annual psionic inspections, just to make sure I haven't been compromised."

Miranda's eyes narrowed. Every soldier of the Combine, just like every employee of Lawson Industries, went through a psionic screening upon being hired as a condition of joining. It was not a particularly pleasant process. It was, however, extremely thorough. To her knowledge no one did annual screenings, or even additional screenings without cause.

"Annually?" her fingers tightened against the fabric of his undress uniform. The material was slightly slick under her fingers, in a way which indicated resistance to fire and probably some shrapnel. It also meant that the boost her psionics received from skin to skin contact weren't in play. "What exactly would be the point of that?"

"Service Security is under the impression that since Wrex worked for X-Com for half a century, he obviously must have some tricks they're unaware of."

"That's a nicely paranoid fantasy."

"Not so nice in practice," Shepard said, more than a little bitterly.

"And with him showing up right after we were there…"

"Yes, when Service Security catches up, I'm going to have a pretty shitty day."

"How shitty?" she asked.

"Very shitty," he glanced up at her, seeing the expression on her face then shrugged, forcing himself to relax somewhat. "Just another inspection, nothing too bad. It happens every time the Alliance does anything big, or does anything at all near me."

Miranda twitched at that, resisting the temptation to lean forward, bringing her chin in contact with his head, through the few short hairs which dared to challenge his buzz cut. It wasn't just that it would be foolish, or that he was wearing a Mind Shield which stopped her from trying to reach into his mind (and the Mind Shield wouldn't stop her if she had skin-to-skin contact). Once she'd tried to take a peek inside his mind. The Sentinel Corps psionics had placed traps in his mind, which she hadn't known was possible until she was in one. Not an experience she wished to repeat. Either the being trapped, or the conversation which had followed. Which brought up an obvious question, but one she couldn't ask it without bringing up something she didn't really want to remember.

"Hang on, your mind is protected."

"The legally mandated second psionic is always a Sentinel Corps psionic and can take out the traps, just as easily as they put them in."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

 **XXXXX**

It therefore wasn't surprising to Miranda, or Shepard, when he was detained (certainly not arrested) by a squad of Service Security the moment he stepped off the _Ghost_. The same could not be said for Tali, or the rest of the Sentinels. There was almost a fight in the docking bay when the Security troopers pulled out the restraints. Only Shepard's claim that this was all just precautionary and he'd be back after having a conversation with whoever was in charge kept the lid on things.

Even that only did it because they were under the eyes of C-Sec and a Spectre. They weren't worried about the outsiders getting involved (especially since the C-Sec commander was one of the few Humans on the force, a Lieutenant Bradley); but they were worried about making the Combine appear disunited in front of outsiders. Well, Ash was worried about that, which was enough.

Miranda had ignored the entire byplay, including the posturing by both Sentinels and Service Security, instead she shook Shepard's hand sharply (ignoring as well his restraints), thanked him for his assistance, stated firmly that she _would_ see him when he was released and went off to work.

That helped break the tension somewhat. Still, Ash let it happen and therefore the others didn't interfere. Shepard hadn't given orders, because he couldn't, not in front of Security and a Spectre. Not without suggesting that his team might disobey the orders of Service Security, within Security's own bailiwick. She was certain she'd read his comment right, but it still hurt to let it happen.

After a debriefing by the senior military attaché to the Combine embassy and passing over her reports, Ash and her team were given leave while Tali was sheltered under the protection of the embassy's Sentinel company. That was standard procedure when a smaller Sentinel unit took shelter with a larger one, in order to avoid any…confusion or internal trouble, as well as to give the smaller unit time to stand down. This was an outgrowth of standard practice on the station holding the Combine Parliament and guarded by the Combine's Own regiment of Sentinels, who were not going to have bunches of extra armed soldiers on their station, regardless of their loyalty or rank.

Tali wasn't terribly thrilled about being separated from her escort, but it wasn't unusual. The request that she remain behind was more unusual, but might have been due to any number of causes and she certainly didn't begrudge her guardians their downtime. Even if she was a little irritated to miss the Citadel as they'd requested she remain within the, large, Combine embassy. At least, she was grumpy until it was explained to her why she was needed. Then she was even less thrilled about it. But she went along, Zorahs always did their duty.

 **XXXXX**

Shepard's cybernetic implants, except his biotic implant, were disabled and his hands were restrained, behind him, as they'd swapped them around from where they'd been bound together in front of him as soon as he was out of sight of his fellow Sentinels. The restraints weren't biotic resistant. If asked, his captors would say that it was a courtesy to a fellow officer, but he knew it for what it was, a trap. An invitation for him to break free in order to demonstrate their idiocy, which they would play as an attempt to escape, justifying harsher measures.

And so he went along quietly, despite the staring eyes of C-Sec officers and Citadel residents, staring at the prisoner in full Combine uniform, handcuffed, with four armed Service Security officers surrounding him and one sadistic psionic interrogator walking alongside him, drifting nearer to him, seeking physical contact, which would strengthen his psionic abilities, perhaps enough to slip into Shepard's mind despite the Mind Shield he still wore, before the second psionic who was legally required for the interrogation showed up (though since they'd made him wait around for almost an hour for this psionic to join them on the trip down to the Service Security interrogation room, the Sentinel Corps psionic was probably already waiting).

Shepard drifted away slowly enough not to trigger any reaction from the Security escort, less because he was concerned about the psionic succeeding then because he was concerned about the psionic going into convulsions when he ran into the traps the Sentinel Corps had left in his mind (the other reason they needed a second psionic was to disable those traps, which was why it had to be a Sentinel Corps psionic). And even that was less because he cared what happened to the sadistic little thug than because he didn't want to have to explain it the Service Security goons.

A psionic screening was never going to be fun, but it didn't have to be _that_ unpleasant. It depended on what tactics the psionic used to ensure a complete and in depth review of the mind. This psionic had chosen to attempt to infuriate Shepard to the point where he could hold nothing back and had been needling him since they left the company of his squad. If he didn't react, they'd accuse him of failing to cooperate, if he did, then they'd accuse him of resisting. He could explain silence. Explaining head-butting a Service Security psionic would be harder, though if the man didn't shut up, it might be worth it.

All of this perhaps explains, though it does not excuse Shepard's distraction and failure to notice the ambushers waiting in the service corridor they'd just entered until laser blasts eliminated the guards in a single precise barrage. Instinct had Shepard bring **barriers** up around both of the surviving Humans (not that they would do anything against lasers), even as the psionic dove for cover and Shepard tried to snap back, out of the service corridor, only to run into the door which was sealed and locked shut. He dropped a **warp** on the metal of his cuffs and let himself fall forward, lowering his profile, though no fire was coming towards him.

Hands free, Shepard scrambled for a different piece of cover, cursing when the weapon he tried to snatch from the hands of one of the dead guards melted under a precise blast from one of the attackers. The corridor was long, but filled with cargo containers which provided both sides with cover. The cargo containers were large and relatively sturdy, but not sturdy enough to actually block weapons fire from modern weapons. However, they were large and full of cargo, which could absorb the thermal energy of the lasers, at least until they finally melted into slag. There was an overhead tram system which picked the cargo containers up and brought them where they needed to go, which meant that the cargo containers were distributed in accordance with the logic of a computer whose goals were efficiency and leaving a path through the corridors to each access point. Not an efficient path, just a path. This left the cargo containers as a maze, which wasn't a problem to anyone with an omni-tool that could guide you through.

The cargo containers shielded his assailants from Shepard's eyes, though he could see where they were hiding. A glance at the psionic convinced him the man was useless, despite the fact that he was clutching his head and muttering as he attempted to reach the minds of the attackers.

They obviously wanted him alive and relatively functional, otherwise the blast that melted the weapon would have melted him as well. For the first time he was grateful he wasn't wearing his armor, as they might have been willing to risk a leg or arm shot then, but on an unarmored Human, that was begging for him to go into shock and die.

Still, it wouldn't do to rely on their supposed need for him in good shape. Instead he flicked out for just a moment and tossed a **throw** at the cargo container that the enemy sheltered behind, sending it flying backwards into the wall behind it. The clang contained an element of splashing which suggested that he'd caught at least one of his attackers between a cargo pod and a metal wall. Three other figures were scampering away into other cover, though at this distance and this angle, he couldn't say more than they weren't Krogan, Elcor, Hanar, Volus, Vipers, or Silicoids. That wasn't nothing, but it wasn't much either.

A flicked hand **pulled** the corpse of the guard who'd stripped off Shepard's omni-tool, before shackling him, into cover along with him while he tracked the remaining assailants. More mundanely, he pulled the pistol from a holster on the dead woman's belt. A standard mass effect weapon, it lacked the armor penetrating modifications which would have made cover ineffective, but it was better than nothing. A spray of blind shots encouraged the enemy to keep back while Shepard pulled his omni-tool back on and attempted to call for aid from C-Sec.

To his complete lack of surprise, he failed. Jamming comms and sensors was necessary for this attack to succeed, at least without the active support of C-Sec. Despite his lack of surprise, it was still worrisome. After the revelation of the Geth presence within the Combine, all Council nations had radically updated their computer security. None were comfortable letting Geth into their systems to defend them, but they also weren't willing to be defenseless.

The official line, and the truth as far as Shepard knew, was that C-Sec's security VIs were good enough to keep out anything but millions of Geth programs, supported by the processing power of an entire fleet. Defeating those wasn't something anyone penny ante could manage. The door out was locked (as he'd known when he bounced off it), but it also wouldn't unlock, even to his milspec omni-tool. Usually there would have been a few dozen Geth programs on his omni-tool, but they'd left when he was detained.

There were only two people firing at him, which suggested the last survivor was moving to flank him, stupid to try to take out a Sentinel one-on-one, but that didn't mean it wasn't what was happening. He considered which way he'd seen them break and began to circle the other direction, an angled **throw** made it look like he was still in his previous position as he moved to flank the attackers. Unfortunately, instead of circling away from the flanker, he managed to run directly into it.

Either an incredibly advanced combat mech, or a standard Geth humanoid model was sliding out of the narrow gap between a cargo container and the wall that Shepard had been heading for.

If it was a dedicated close-combat model, he was screwed whether he charged or retreated, if it was a general purpose, or dedicated sniper model, he had a chance if he closed, but was screwed if he ran, so Shepard charged. He managed two shots on the run from the pistol, the first hitting the robot's shields, the second, because the barrel of his gun was inside them, ripping through the Geth's head. Usually that contained one set of processors and sensors and was your best bet for a one-hit kill.

But, of course, this was a military model, with dispersed and armored processors, redundant sensors and more strength and speed than any organic. One hand caught the gun and crushed its barrel as the other caught Shepard by the throat, seeking to incapacitate him. A **warp** placed directly against the shoulder joint of the arm holding him up prevented that and the biotic energy began to burn through the armor of its chest and it staggered back a step, gaining distance.

Shepard dropped to the ground, twisting away as the Geth's remaining arm came up, inbuilt laser trying to bear on his leg. It tracked the movement, waiting for his head and torso to clear the shot and so missed Shepard's powerful **pull** yanking the cargo container back against the wall hard enough to damage the Geth and buy himself a moment to get up and drop another pair of **warps** on it, making it collapse in on itself.

He was lucky it had been a sniper model, the close-combat versions had much more serious armor, but the ranged-optimized ones relied more on shields to handle biotics. "Two down, two to go," he muttered to himself. Not too concerned about giving away his position, as the shots and the crash of metal-on-metal had done that for him. So it was best to move away from there.

While he'd been running into the Geth (he still didn't know the correct suffix), the enemy had been advancing on the pinned psionic but as he was still ineffectually attempting to psionically attack them, they turned towards Shepard, while his only weapon was destroyed. Shepard took a quick glance at the Geth, but, as with most military models, it didn't carry any weapons independent of its chassis and he had no chance of improvising a weapon out of the remains, well, except maybe a club.

Ducking back the way he came kept him ahead of the advancing enemies, and he did get a chance to spot them. They were both female Batarians in civilian clothes, with heavy laser pistols. Their pursuit sped up as they caught sight of him in turn. Shepard spun around the corner leading him back to where the psionic was hiding and realized he couldn't retreat further without abandoning the Service Security asshole.

With a silent curse, he turned back to ambush the enemy as they rounded the corner, snatching a pistol from the first one to follow him around corner and followed up to a punch to the sensitive upper pair of eyes which should have knocked her backwards, with pain spasming the weapon free from her hand.

It did not. She didn't react beyond having her head rock back. The Batarian's response was to launch a punch at Shepard's stomach, he slid around the blow, releasing her weapon and bringing both hands to her throat, a **warp** melting its way through skin, muscle and bone. She didn't show any pain, but she did start to collapse as her head fell off and her bowels voided.

A kick knocked her corpse back into her fellow who'd followed her around the corner and Shepard managed to grab the pistol she'd dropped before the second Batarian could react and shot her through the head. He got up slowly, "I think that's all of them. Did you see any others?" he asked.

The psionic rushed at him, going for a tackle. Shepard instantly relaxed and controlled his instinct, assuming that someone else was aiming at him. It wasn't until the psionic was atop him and prying off his Mind Shield that Shepard realized that the man was under someone else's control (which wasn't likely to happen to a Service Security psionic). It wasn't until the Mind Shield lifted from his flesh and the psionic ripped his way into Shepard's mind that he realized that the man wasn't under anyone's control but his own and that this day was turning out to be even more unpleasant than he'd expected.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Terminus Alliance:_**

 _The Terminus Alliance is a loose alliance of approximately thirty worlds, scattered throughout the Terminus. Founded by Urdnot Wrex, the Alliance is more of a mutual defense pact than a government. All planets agree to provide housing, fuel and power to Alliance ships when they come calling and, in turn, Overlord Wrex agrees to make sure that no one invades them, or raids them._

 _He does this, despite the relatively small number of ships at his command, through unmatched ground forces, undeniable ruthlessness with his enemies and impeccable intelligence gathering. It is rumored that Wrex's longstanding relationship with the Shadow Broker emerged intact from the Krogan's time with the Combine special operations group known as X-Com. It is equally rumored that Wrex created his own intelligence network based on X-Com's, or that the entire X-Com network defected to Wrex. Regardless, to raid an Alliance world is to invite death down upon you and everyone around you._

 _The Alliance is officially neutral in all matters related to the Council, however few doubt that if there is conflict between the Council and the Terminus, the Alliance will act as the core of resistance around which other worlds rally._

 _Despite this neutrality, most parties expected news of Wrex's death to follow immediately after announcing the formation of the Alliance, as Wrex could hardly hide and lead a government at the same time. However Wrex's combination of mostly curing the genophage, but still limiting the Krogan reproductive ability to exactly match that of the Vipers (the next most fruitful known species) and positioning himself as peacemaker meant that any further assassination attempts would be both futile (as the damage was done) and counterproductive (as they would undoubtedly infuriate the newly re-energized Krogan). An uneasy truce is the order of the day, though doomsayers on both sides say it is fated to end in blood and tears._

 ** _Codex: New Day:_**

 _Formally known as the_ New Day _, the flagship of the Terminus Alliance Fleet is informally known as the_ Krogan Rock _,_ Wrex's Quad _, the_ Worldbreaker, _and the_ End of Days _._

 _A massive vessel, it was formerly Asteroid 7231 of the Lictor System. A 5.3 kilometer asteroid, full of iron, nickel, copper and a few other elements worth mining. After it was hollowed out by Hegemony miners in 1921, it was used as a base of supply for further mining operations in the system until 2036. Thereafter it, and the Lictor System were abandoned until the arrival of Urdnot Wrex, the_ Stiletto _, and a_ lot _of element zero._

 _Originally intended to permit the cured Krogan a secure home where they could never again be poisoned, following the creation of the Terminus Alliance the vessel was converted into the single largest warship in existence. It is also the single least maneuverable craft in existence, but as it has enough weapons to completely destroy anything which comes into range, this is not, usually, a problem._

 _Besides acting as the flagship of the Terminus Alliance Navy, it also acts as the home and home base of Urdnot Wrex himself, Overlord of the Terminus Alliance._

 _As he's surrounded by hundreds of thousands of loyal soldiers and a weapons system that could depopulate a planet, assassination attempts have been…notably unsuccessful as a tactic for dealing with Overlord Wrex._

 **Author's Note: Reviews are always welcome.**


	15. Chapter 12: Known Unknowns

**Chapter 12: Known Unknowns**

 **Author's Note: This week was even worse. I didn't have time to proofread this chapter, sorry. Please let me know if you spot any typos or other errors and I'll fix it when I get back. I'm taking the rest of October off to recover. Updates will resume in November.**

Ash glanced around the table, everyone but the Old Man had a drink, crucially they had the right drinks, as with the exception of her and Kohrvan, anyone mixing up drinks was going to end up in the hospital, or the morgue. Though Shalira was levo, like Humans and Batarians, not dextro, like Quarians, Viper's alcohol contained various additives that bonded with alcohol in their stomachs and melted other sapients' stomachs. Without those additives, even a beer's worth of alcohol would give a Viper alcohol poisoning. The potential death if you grabbed the wrong glass gave getting drunk that little frisson of excitement that made it just a bit more fun.

Shalira fortunately wasn't eating, as that was a disturbing sight for everyone, but the rest of them were snacking on bar food. Chora's Den wasn't a very nice place, but that suited their mood and no one was dumb enough to bother five Combine soldiers drinking together and obviously in a bad mood.

Well, one person had been that dumb and that drunk, but after Maale's **pull** had turned him into a floating, puking missile, no one else had tried to bother them. It had made it a little tricky to get service, but that was easily resolved with cash and angry glares (which had also respectively attracted, then repelled one of the dancers).

"This is bullshit," Kohrvan said, after a lengthy discussion of the quality of the bar's snacks and how they compared to other snacks in other bars.

"Just because you don't understand how _good_ raw meat can be with the appropriate lubricants—" Shalira began.

"Not what I mean," Kohrvan interrupted the Viper before she could resume waxing poetically about the pleasures of eating all your food for a day in a single, distended and disturbing, bite. "The Council grabbed up Liara and the Combine grabbed up Shepard. Everyone who saw—" Ash kicked her under the table and the Batarian swallowed her words and rephrased, "that stuff is in custody. And they just kick us loose, after relieving us of our responsibility for the Zorah heir? Seriously? That makes sense to you?"

"It's SOP for Sentinel Squads to stand down when the protectee is within another secure perimeter. Prevents conflicts of loyalty and gives the squad some downtime. If you're worried, just check with Geth," Ash said levelly.

"You can call me paranoid if you want, but it sure as dirt isn't SOP for a Sentinel Corps _lieutenant commander_ get dragged off in cuffs."

"You're paranoid," Ash began, intending to argue it was SOP when someone else had been in your head.

"It's SOP for Shepard, anytime Wrex or his boys get near, or any other time Service Security gets a hair up their butt," the Old Man said, voice echoing slightly as he watched over the drinking officers with the benevolent calm of a family patriarch. He made it about halfway through his explanation of the younger man's family history before Kohrvan exploded out of her seat, literally pounding the table, prompting stares and an explosion of smaller snacks.

"I fucking knew it! I told you, it's just like the bullshit I have to deal with all the time! 'Everyone knows Batarians don't have the patience for defense, why don't you go join the Vanguard Corps?' Fucking racist mother-fuckers!"

"Their concernsss about Sssshepard are based on bloodline, not racccce," Shalira countered, swaying slightly, though her increasing incapacity was more audible than visible as her esses elongated when she was drunk. She focused somewhat, "Besides, it makes sense to me. Family loyalty isn't an easy thing to let go of."

"That's bull—" Kohrvan began, repeating herself, only to be cut off by beeping coming from five omni-tools at once as the Geth broke in. That alarm produced instant silence from everyone at the table.

"Members of Sentinel Squad 0193, C-Sec has issued an alert to bring Commander Shepard into custody. They do not have a location on him. We do. He entered Service Corridor 337-Alpha approximately 13 minutes ago. All security is down in the service corridors of that ward, but we are transmitting the most efficient route from that entrance to the Service Security central station."

The squad was rising and moving, though both Ash and the Old Man checked to confirm that the Geth had informed the rest of the Combine about the problem, as they didn't want to be trying to solve it, half-drunk, unarmored, unarmed _and_ alone.

 **XXXXX**

"Patroller, I owe you an apology. You were correct, this situation is indeed _literally_ FUBAR," Garrus Vakarian said to the C-Sec officer who'd escorted him to the extremely tense crime scene.

The massive Asari Spectre facing down Donnel Udina, the Combine ambassador, there in person, surrounded by his personal guards, was a highlight. More worrisome were the half-potted Sentinel squad drifting into the C-Sec guards' personal space so they'd be able to 'borrow' C-Sec weapons if this went as bad as it was looking like it might. The squad of Asari commandos, escorting a Turian psionic, sent by Matriarch Benezia to keep her daughter from being mind probed by bringing back the Human to undergo it in her place were just irritants and the C-Sec guards were mostly under his command (except for Psi-Investigator and her team). The heavily armed and armored squad from Lawson Industries, escorting their CEO who were actually standing over the pair of Humans who'd started all this nonsense were the immediate problem, as they'd bulled their way past the first responders and refused to give way.

 ** _Codex: C-Sec Psionic Team, Unlocked._**

At that point, the corpses and shattered surroundings were just window dressing. The two Humans at the center of this nightmarish scene were on the ground, one's hands wrapped around the other's throat and head.

"Yes, sir," the patroller agreed with a smirk which made clear how glad she was that solving this situation wasn't her responsibility.

Garrus took a deep breath and stepped forward. "All right, everyone, we," he waved at himself, the Spectre, C-Sec officers and Asari commandos," want to bring Commander Shepard to the Council's investigators, alive and with his mind intact. You," he pointed at the Combine ambassador and the Setninel squad," want to take him to your own security," the Sentinels twitched in a way which suggested that might not be true, "alive and intact. You," he turned to the Lawson Industries folks, "I don't know what you want, but I assume it includes him alive and intact, or else you'd have killed him before the rest of us got here. So, since we all agree that he needs to be fixed, all the psionics are going to go over there and fix him, while the rest of us get out of the way and let the crime scene techs see if there's any evidence at all left here, now that we've all marched through here. When that's done, we'll figure out what to do with him. If anyone has a problem with that, I really don't care, because I've got three platoons of Special Response Division officers with brand new guns outside who really want a chance to see what they can do."

A moment of silence greeted that. Garrus continued even more menacingly. "Of course, if any one of us didn't want the commander's mind to come out of this intact, well, delaying us all like this would be a good way to do it. But none of you want that, right?" his implicit, and unsubtle accusation landed as it began to occur to folks that, if he really believed it, then he might really mean it when he said he'd unleash the goons of the Special Response Division on them.

There was a certain amount of awkward shuffling and 'don't you know who I am'-ing, but everyone was moving in the right direction, so he ignored it. He intended to be the last person out of the room, but the CEO of Lawson Industries tried to remain behind, even as her guards trickled out.

"You too, ma'am," he said sharply.

"I'll stay with the other psionics, thank you," she replied without bothering to look at him. In fact, he noticed, she hadn't bothered to take her eyes off the frozen pair for the entire time he'd been in the area.

A quick glance at the Psi-Investigator got him a brief nod confirming she really was a psionic and Garrus retreated out of the corridor to clear the way for the crime scene techs, who skewed heavily Salarian and were already muttering bitterly to one another about clod-footed biglings who stomped all over everything without any concern for proper preservation of evidence. Garrus chose not to hear any of that, as people who started (or even participated in) arguments with the crime scene team tended to discover that the technicians could construct truly elaborate and diabolical practical jokes. And you weren't allowed to just shoot them in response. Especially since they didn't leave any evidence behind that they'd been involved. Only the Network Division nerds were more dreaded when it came to pranking and that was only because they controlled the Citadel's sewer system.

They shuffled out of the corridor, though each group left a soldier on the other side of the door to linger and glare at the psionics.

 **XXXXX**

Most of the other psionics were giving Tali odd looks. Maybe they knew her, or maybe they just could feel she was a lot stronger than they were, but it was the usual nonsense. She didn't particularly want to be in command, but no one else was stepping up. Miranda was still staring at Shepard, the Turian psionic Benezia had dispatched was extremely nervous and outclassed, the Salarian Psi-Investigator was silently examining the scene and the Sentinel Corps psionic Udina had brought along was staring at Tali.

"Anyone know what he's doing?" she asked.

"We've caught a psionic attack in process," the Psi-Investigator said, watching the crime scene techs work. "Looks like a smash and grab." There were dozens of forms of psionic crimes, but the smash and grab was relatively basic, smashing the victim's mind to pieces, then grabbing the information sought out of the wreckage. It was occasionally the first step in reforming the victim's mind into something else, as a smashed mind was quite…pliant. Only extraordinary willpower, military training and the massive amounts of adrenaline that were still pumping through Shepard's system had kept his mind as intact as it was.

 ** _Codex: Psionic Crimes, Unlocked._**

 _Shit._ "Anyone have any experience with that?" Miranda asked.

"I've done some clean-up work afterwards, but I have no idea how to interfere with one that's happening," Tali said.

"No one does," the Psi-Investigator stated with a calm certainty. "We'll have to wait for him to finish, then do what we can to fix the victim."

"Unacceptable," Miranda said, before Tali could speak.

"We've had some success fixing folks up afterwards, but I don't think anyone's tried what you're talking about. The only case I know where anyone even tried the psionic caught a bullet and his victim kicked it too," the Psi-Investigator pointed out, without ceasing to hover over the crime scene techs as they worked.

"We're doing this. Who's in?" Tali said.

Benezia's and Udina's psionics looked at each other and came to an agreement that they'd ambush the assailant when he tried to retreat to his own mind and make sure they got a full copy of whatever he'd pried loose from Shepard's mind. Whatever visions the beacon had shown him where what they were after, Shepard's mind was, at best, a secondary matter.

Miranda attempted to argue that they needed the Sentinel Corp's psionic to get them through the traps in Shepard's mind, but apparently whoever the asshole attacking Shepard was, he knew how to rip those defenses apart and hadn't left anything but wisps of unpleasant thought behind in their place.

The Psi-Investigator made it clear that he was going to stay out of everyone's mind and instead observe what was going on, in the interest of helping future victims and scientific curiosity.

"I'll chase the asshole out and stabilize Shepard's mind. You get him to focus and reform his self," Tali said.

"I think you should—"

"I don't, _Miri_ ," Tali interrupted her, for the first time in the other woman's experience.

A muscle jumped in Miranda's jaw. "All right. Let's do this," She stepped forward and put a hand on Shepard's forehead, while Tali took one of the Sentinel's hands. And they began.

 **XXXXX**

Joker's seat in the corner let him keep an eye on doors, windows and everyone else in the shitty bar on Ward 49. It was full of Humans, with the ridiculous planet Earth flag of one or another of the Human supremacist factions. He could never keep track of all of them, partly because there were quite a few of them, partly because they were almost completely inconsequential and mostly because as a Flight Officer for X-Com, he didn't have to know shit about them.

The bar was the rendezvous point his contact had chosen and he was in the right position, with the right drink and both sleeves on his shirt rolled up. So his contact should be able to find him without needing to resort to anything as unreliable as a holo. Personally, he preferred using a holo, but that was probably just because he was a Flight Officer, not Intelligence and failed to properly appreciate spycraft.

The lithe woman who approached him was definitively _not_ his contact. He'd never seen an X-Com officer covered in tattoos, or wearing approximately half of a standard issue crewman's jumpsuit. The lower half, to be precise, though the remnants of a leather jacket kept her from violating decency laws, so long as she was _very_ careful in her movements. Black hair jutted upwards in an impressive Mohawk and to complete the image of sheer toughness, she casually decked the first drunken idiot to take her half-dressed state as an invitation.

When she sat down across from him and propositioned him, he was surprised. Not just at the offer, though that wasn't something that happened every day, but mostly because it contained the series of code words he'd been told to keep an ear out for. He'd been wrong. She definitively _was_ his contact. He would not have thought it was possible to work the words 'vociferous,' 'elemental,' and 'revivify' into a sexual proposition, but he'd have been wrong.

He accepted the proposition with a joke (as he had to live up to his nom de guerre) and rose, preparing to follow her out of the bar to wherever they could actually talk. It was something of a surprise when she chose to drag him by the hand into the backroom of the bar, elbowing aside a bartender who tried to get in her way and glaring down the bouncer with a flicker of biotic energy racing along her skin, raising goosebumps where it came in contact with his skin.

The heavy door slid shut and active noise cancellation activated, blocking out all noise from outside the room. After she made an actual pass at him which he delicately declined, she slid the data-storage device into his pocket, stole his belt and shoved him out the door with an insulting comment about his performance.

Blushing despite himself, Joker made his retreat back to the _Pillowtalk_ , docked separately from the _Ghost_ under a temporary id as the _CMV Alpha,_ a courier ship. That almost fit the profile of the small vessel and with the guns retracted everyone was pretending that it wasn't an X-Com hunter-killer.

The data chip slid into the reader in PT's bridge, and demanded a passcode, which his contact had not given him. A quick quantum entanglement communicator call to HQ later and he had the password, which unlocked the data on the storage device.

He didn't notice that because it also shut down his ship, unlocking the airlock and let his contact make her way inside with the use of heavy biotics and a magnetic manipulator to handle the physical locks without cutting, or breaking them. It still took her several minutes to make her way to the bridge, where Joker was desperately attempting to get the _Pillowtalk_ to work, or at least wake up the Geth who lived inside her computer systems.

"Relax, Joker, everything will turn back on in twenty minutes, and all the Geth will know is that they were temporarily deactivated at the order of the Commander," the contact said, standing in the entryway to the bridge startling the X-Com officer out from under the console he'd been working under (though not without him barking his head off the edge in a painful, but not debilitating manner).

Joker was a bit grumpy about that and even grumpier about her presence _and_ yet _more_ grumpy still that he still hadn't managed to reclaim his pistol from wherever PT had hidden it. He didn't manage to hit completely furious until a wave of her hand **lifted** him off the ground and she pressed some device against his skull, easily batting aside his defensive movements. It beeped and pressed tight on his head, then pulled away, beeping in a more positive manner.

"Congratulations! You aren't a slave of the Hegemony." the woman said, pulling the device from his head and letting him fall to the ground.

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? AND WHAT THE _HELL_ DID YOU DO TO PT?"

Joker's contact was glad she'd shut the door behind her. "We need to have a little talk about things the Geth isn't cleared to know. Most of what you need is on that disc and will be revealed, but," a hand set down active noise cancellation and a broad-spectrum bug detector, "but there's some bits it's not cleared for."

Joker managed not to ask how he knew this wasn't a trap. QEC's couldn't be intercepted and he'd gotten the codes for the single use, quantum-encrypted chip from the Commander's office. The codes to shut down PT had to have come from there as well.

"Speak," he commanded, voice low.

"Ooooh, so commanding and growly."

Joker's glare contained less amusement than usual.

"All right, no time to waste. Following the worst military disaster in Combine history, X-Com had a little bit of a problem. The sudden appearance of the Hegemony superdreadnought took everyone by surprise, but _everyone_ wasn't in charge of external intelligence and security, we were. And we'd missed it completely."

"Yes, thank you, I studied that cluster-fuck in flight school. Not that there's a maneuver which solves the 'oh my god a superdreadnought we didn't know existed has dropped out behind your fleet which was maneuvering to cut off the Hegemony from the Kite's Nest Relay."

"Yes, yes, bad news all around, Combine fleet trapped—"

"No they weren't FUCKING trapped. It could have run easily, except that command chose casualties over retreat. With full support from the X-Com advisors on-site," Joker snapped.

"You can keep delaying, but if we get to the part where your Geth wakes up without me telling you what I need to tell you, I'll just put it back under."

Joker settled somewhat at that threat and the sheer pointlessness of further delay.

"Fine. And this all has what to do with your scary brain-beeper?"

"That I'll explain when your Geth is up. The point here is that the battle was a disaster. The newly appointed Commander assigned nine senior Field Commanders the task of figuring out what the fuck happened. Where the superdreadnought had come from, why they hadn't known about it and what exactly its capabilities were."

"So what?"

"So, they spent the next twenty years of the Commander's tenure doing nasty shit to try to find answers."

"What sort of nasty shit?"

"Okay, so you know that the Battle of the Relay was supposed to be X-Com's crowning moment. Our allies amongst the slaves and lower caste Hegemony sailors had sabotaged the fleet's GARDIAN systems. Their main batteries still worked, but we had a whole fleet of boarding craft prepared. We were going to capture their entire fleet and use it, crewed by former slaves to capture the Kite's Nest."

"Yes, yes, the Batarians liberate themselves, we're just helpful allies. Except it didn't work and we used up that entire fleet launching a ridiculous suicidal assault on the superdreadnought to no real effect except a couple of ships plowing straight into it."

"Except, no. We got several hundred soldiers onboard, they managed to sabotage some portions of the ship. Shame we hadn't brought along any nukes, or we might have saved ourselves a lot of trouble. The key point here is that most of the folks who got on and all the psionics, went nuts and started killing each other. We got five soldiers off before the ship got away and they were very nuts. Vivisecting them was how the team figure out the little doodad I used on you a moment ago, to look for that unique form of mind control."

"Not nice, but I don't know that I'd call it nasty shit. They were volunteers and under alien mind control," Joker argued, not terribly surprised that some bits of the history he'd been taught were bullshit, though since this change made X-Com appear less incompetent and was coming from an X-Com partisan, he wasn't entirely sure he believed it.

"Yeah, well, they noticed that the damage done to the minds of the soldiers wasn't like what you see when a psionic controls your mind. Which isn't real surprising, given how hard it is for a psionic to control another psionic, yet all our boys and girls got mind controlled. Instead it was more like **domination**."

Joker just blinked at her. "If you pull out a riding crop, I'm telling HR."

"Funny. It's an ability which was only seen in Ardat-Yakshi."

"Which are?"

"Which were Asari who suffered from a genetic illness. They were almost all cured after first contact and a few, large, purchases of Meld. Major early propaganda success for the Combine."

"Okay, well, if they were mostly all cured, then there were some survivors working with or enslaved by the Hegemony. So what?"

"Well, first, **dominate** isn't magic, you need close proximity, which they certainly didn't have for almost thirty shuttles, breaching from different areas. Second, it's only sorta close to the effects of **domination** and thirdly, there were never that many Ardat-Yakshi and they weren't trustworthy allies, or safe slaves. Anyway, the point here is that this team went looking for Ardat-Yakshi, but didn't find any. Hardly a surprise as any who are left have been hiding for eighty years."

"And here I thought we were in a hurry. Is there any chance of you coming to a point anytime soon?"

"So, it occurred to them, anything which can be done by Meld, can be undone by Meld and there's a big ol' market full of Asari slaves in the Terminus…"

"Aw. Shit," Joker picked up her thread and decided he didn't actually want her to finish her story.

"Nasty shit," she agreed.

"Okay, fine. What's all this got to do with me?"

"So this team, investigating the superdreadnought you just saw, goes on happily for twenty years being murderous assholes and recruiting other murderous assholes to their band of murderous _fucking_ assholes. Then the Commander kicks it, right in the middle of the Sarai scandal."

The revelation that X-Com had provided a safe harbor for slavers in exchange for information on Geth positions in the Terminus had been extraordinarily damaging to the organization, especially coming immediately after claims from the Council that X-Com had been providing Meld, money and information to the Krogan. Joker nodded as he actually remembered that from his own childhood, barely.

"X-Com went through several interim Commanders, then the current Commander was finally appointed, from outside X-Com altogether. So, without any information, or experience, it takes for-fucking-ever to get a handle on the job. Finally, a member of this team comes to visit, eight years in, when things are finally, sort of, under control and say 'hey here's this huge secret program inside your secret organization and we've been doing nasty shit for decades, aren't we awesome?' And the Commander says, 'no, stop it,' and they say, 'but Commander, look at all this progress we've made,' and the Commander say, 'that's nice, now stop it,' and they say, 'but consider the danger,' and the Commander says, 'we can address that without doing this nasty shit,' and they say, 'no we can't,' and the Commander says—"

"Yes, we can?" Joker suggested.

"Right, so it goes on like that for a while. Finally the Commander gives a flat out order, 'stop it, your task force is decommissioned,' to which they said 'no.'"

Joker jumped ahead about five steps. "So we've got a rogue X-Com unit, probably with ties still inside the organization, probably on its way to question me and the others, but don't worry, because the tattooed lady is here to protect me?"

"Oh, fuck no."

"Thank—you're about to say you aren't here to protect me, aren't you?" Joker asked.

"Stepped on my punch line there."

"Well, shit."

"Nasty shit," she agreed.

"Fine. So you're here, alone, to hunt other X-Com agents. Okay, fine, whatever. What do you need from me, since I expect this data file has orders for me to assist you however I can."

"It does. Nothing much, I'll just hang around until they show up."

"Then defeat an entire X-Com unit on your own?"

She smiled, "I doubt it will be an entire unit, but yes."

"Fine. Okay. Whatever. One last question."

"Yes?"

"What's your name?"

"Jack."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously, _Joker_."

"All right then. One more last question. What's next?"

"Explain all of this except the murderous assholes bit to your Geth and then get back to work, of course."

"Of course."

 **XXXXX**

A psionic sees one of two things in the mind of another, memory or metaphor. The memories belong to the mind of the host, while the metaphor belongs to the mind of the psionic. Tali's metaphor was always a starship. She might have been more skilled if her metaphor had been more organic, but that wasn't how her mind worked. The pieces of that shattered ship floated in an endless black void. She could see how she might pull them back together, but knew that for the trap it was, that would be reshaping Shepard's mind to fit her perceptions of him, nothing more or less. Instead she held every shattered, broken piece of the ship in place and traced the man who was attempting to pull them further apart, with approximately as much success as a child attempting to pull a toy from the grip of a full grown Viper (this image brought to you by her time spent being babysat by Commander Issar-Volum, leader of her father's bodyguards). A flicker of a thought was enough to shove the weaker psionic out of Shepard's mind. It was good that was all it took, because it turned out that holding every fragment of a man's mind in place against entropy, fear and his own will was a lot harder than she'd expected.

Miranda's metaphor was somewhat more organic, but not that much, as Shepard's mind appeared to her as a massive shattered glass statue of the soldier in single giant room of a museum. It was relatively easy to find the center of Shepard's remaining will, as it centered the most intact portion of the glass. She could hear his mind focusing on a single mantra and the reminder of who he was.

"I am a soldier of the Combine. I am the sentinel who never sleeps. I am the shield which never breaks. While I live, the Combine will not fall. While I live, the Treaty will not be broken. While I live, those I protect are safe from all harm. I am a Sentinel."

The Sentinel Corps creed was not a particularly pretty piece of prose, but it was one Shepard could repeat in his sleep, in fact he had done so, during training and occasionally since. The sentinel was standing in a glass ball of his memories, the strongest ones, which would come to him regardless of how little he wanted them to. Embarrassment, lust, pain, pride, fear, betrayal and loss. She could see flashes of them all surrounding them, including herself a few times.

"John," she whispered.

He turned, saw her and remembered. She remembered through him.

 _Blood on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, both of them and everyone else in the area. The look on Miri's face, disgust as she saw what he'd done in his rage, in his loss of control._ No. That was wrong. It wasn't disgust she'd been feeling, it was surprise. She'd been trained by the best and hadn't known it was possible to do that with biotics. _Shame._ It hit her with the force of a **throw** to the chest and she forced herself not to correct him.

 _Her own hand extended, smile on her beautiful face as she pointed out that his assignment was over and no anti-fraternization regulations prevented them from doing…anything at all. All he had to do was say yes._ She shuddered. _I want her._ The lust she felt was an echo of her own remembered emotion, but she couldn't let them leak together, that would be a horrible violation of his mind and will.

 _The **throw** impacted his shoulder at full force, not the quarter-strength usually used while sparing and he felt the pop and agony of the joint sliding free of the socket. Eyes flicked up to see Miranda standing over him in her workout clothes, the metal of her cybernetics plainly visible on her bare midriff. "Shouldn't underestimate me just cause I'm a crip," she smirked and the blue glow around her hands swung towards his unprotected head_. _Pain._ But he dodged that, threw me into a wall and then explained he was just tired from having night watch, nothing else. I apologized for jumping to conclusions and put his shoulder back in. All true, but that was not this memory, this was a memory of being hurt by someone he trusted because she didn't trust him.

 _Her glare at her father was fire and fury. She stripped him of his control, his allies, his wealth with nothing more than the force of her personality._ And the platoon of Vanguard Corps troops at my back. _There was no hesitation at all as she did the hard, necessary thing to fix the harm her father had done._ There was plenty of hesitation. She'd been fucking terrified of the man all her— _Pride. Unearned, he didn't have anything to do with her actions—_ untrue— _but he was still proud._ That she could revel in, even as a part of her shriveled at how badly he'd misread her. But it wasn't something she could fix.

 _The shot hit her square in the chest. She went down. FEAR._ She shook as pride was swept away. _He was over her, looking down, fear had not yet turned to fury and would not. There wasn't any blood. It was just an EMP, short out the cybernetics-_ reveal my weakness _-slow them down, but she didn't look scared, or hurt, just pissed. And alive._ The relief at that was a lake of cold water on burning skin.

 _"I see why you like her, Johnnie, what Human boy doesn't grow up wanting a remote control Barbie? You don't mind lending me her remote some night, do you?" Commander Liva'Ran's voice was lascivious and pointed as she sought to provoke a reaction from him. RAGE. He kept his face still. RAGE. He rose. Gunnery Sergeant Ravel rose as well to get between the two officers, but he slipped past the larger man and let his voice drop to a level that was just barely audible. "Do you think the Combine would pay for implants like hers for you if there were to be a terrible accident and you took a **warp** to the base of your spine? Or would you decline rather than be turned into a…what was the phrase? Remote-controlled Barbie?" She met his eyes and smiled. "Relax, I was just testing you. It's good to see you have some fire in you after all, Johnnie." RAGE. _ But he didn't react when she walked into the room, a moment later she remembered that moment, she'd actually thought Liva was flirting with him in that moment. Now she knew how badly she'd misinterpreted that. She couldn't think of a time words had provoked such a strong reaction in herself. More memories came, faster and faster, only fragments touching her.

 _She collapsed, convulsing, mind trapped in an artificial moment of agony. Though, he remembered, the agony had not been artificial, but he had experienced it for only a moment, to permit the trap to be created. She was stuck in it. He should have felt pity, but he didn't. She'd tried to pry inside his mind, violate it, for her own curiosity, which he would have slaked if she'd just asked the question, but she didn't. She couldn't trust him, or anyone. The betrayal stung worse than the minor pain of ejecting her mind from his._ Speak for yourself. That fucking hurt.

 _He'd said no and saw she wouldn't ask again. He'd offended her pride, probably convinced her he cared about the implants, or the genetic mods, or that he hadn't really forgiven her for her stupid insecure bullshit. That wasn't it at all. But he'd lost her, forever in that one word and all the stammered explanations afterwards couldn't make that right._ It wasn't that big a fucking deal, I made the offer, you said no, that was the end of it. _Loss_. It brought tears to her eyes, but she controlled herself, forced herself away from the memories, the exhausting, exhilarating history of the year they'd worked together, told from a perspective she'd never truly seen and looked at the man behind it all.

He was exhausted and fraying around the edges, like a running watercolor. She tried to reach him and suddenly found herself trapped in a glass bubble of his memories of her, shunted aside and away as his mind clawed out trying to pull its fragmented self into some sort of order. The damage he would do to himself trying to fix his own mind would be almost as bad as that his assailant had done trying to destroy it. Tali wouldn't let him do that, but he was wasting energy on that while she was trapped in a bubble which she didn't dare shatter for fear of making him forget her altogether.

He wasn't thinking, merely reacting and only his most powerful memories remained with him, under his control. Maybe she could build from that, she could see how the pieces should fit together, how they should come together into a single whole. She could make him strong again, whole again.

No. She could make a strong, whole thing out of the pieces of him. Only he could make himself whole again. She knew that. If nothing else, her father had taught her that.

She focused her will and slid through the glass as if she was vibrating at precisely the right frequency. It was his mind, but her metaphor and she was the psionic. She slid closer and evaded the instinctive ambush this time.

"I'm going to try something Tali, let him move the stuff around, one at a time, all right?"

"Understood."

"John, focus on me. Remember how we met?"

The memory flashed by so fast she couldn't get more than a blurred impression of irritation at needing to work with a corporate suit, even a pretty one. "Then what?" she asked.

More memories flashed past, quick as thought, then they were flowing together into a single unified story. They met, fought, learned to work together, won and went their separate ways. A cohesive tale, if told only from a single limited viewpoint.

"But how did you become the man I met?" she asked. Those memories moved too fast for her to see at all and he formed not the massive glass statue of a man as she'd thought, but was a glass sculpture all along the walls of the museum, a band of shimmering glass circling round and round, narrower and narrower as it approached the floor and the past, telling the tale of his life, his ancestors, all the things which had shaped him. "And what did you do after you left?"

The glass sculpture rose, growing wider and wider as it approached the present, then stopped with the smoothness of polished glass at this moment, when she came for him, pulled away his tormentor and saved him, just as he'd saved her, once upon a time.

The glass wasn't real, it was just a metaphor. Her mind putting meaning and beauty on his. But that wasn't what she saw. What she saw was the route she'd almost taken. What would he have become if she'd turned all this glittering sculpture into a statue?

She opened her eyes and stepped back to find Tali had already released him and was with the others, examining the psionic who'd attacked Shepard. Emotions still hot from contact with his, she rose in a fury, only to find the man was dead, brains leaking from his ears and nose, apparently liquefied, though she had no idea how that could have happened.

That the Psi-Investigator obviously was finding interesting, as was the crime scene tech who was running scans on the body. As Miranda paused, her knees and back suddenly screamed at her and it occurred to her to wonder how long she'd been kneeling there. A glance at her omni-tool told her it was almost a standard hour. It had felt like minutes.

Dropping the corpse from her attention like the trash it was, she returned to Shepard and was there when his eyes opened. He therefore only smiled and muttered that they had to stop meeting like this, it was starting to get embarrassing.

At the sound of Miranda's laughter, Tali and the others joined her. Tali because she was pleased Shepard was alive and apparently well, the others because they wanted to either snatch visions from his mind, or examine it to see what the after-effects of their treatment were.

The sentinel was not particularly eager to let anyone back into his mind at that moment, but a brief negotiation with the other psionics and everyone (except the Psi-Investigator whose frustrated scientific curiosity everyone else agreed they didn't care about) agreed to let Miranda get what they needed and give it to them, without them ever touching Shepard's mind.

With that done, the crowd began to thin out some and Shepard was able to get some answers. The Geth was believed to be one of the Geth-Enslaver, based on an analysis of its chassis. How such a creature had gotten onto the station was a problem for C-Sec, which was going to be having a real fun day. The other three were both more and less interesting. The two Batarians were there on temporary work permits and from outside Combine space (which was less unusual than it sounded, many law abiding citizens had ended up as refugees, then citizens of other Citadel worlds during the war between the Combine and the Hegemony), the last, however, was a Salarian.

It might be a Geth-Slaver plot, but, lacking any psionics, they relied on mechanical means of control of their slaves, which were extremely obvious (and would have killed the Batarians, after the sole Geth-Slaver in the area was destroyed by Shepard…unless there were more in the area, but surely they would have intervened) and extremely missing. The Geth-Slaver had been known to buy slaves from Batarians in the old days, but only psionics, and the Salarian certainly hadn't been a psionic, none of their assailants had been. It was possible they were mercenaries, but that didn't explain the presence of the Geth (though some mercenaries did take abandoned Geth chasses to refurbish as combat mechs). The combination of Geth-Slaver, Batarians and Salarian was…odd.

Almost as odd as a psionic whose brain had melted. C-Sec absconded with all the bodies (except the psionic, who was, at least nominally Combine military personnel), notably failing to share the results of the autopsies, or any other results of their investigation.

The other psionics had already been pulled away under heavy guard to report back whatever it was someone thought was worth attacking Combine guards on the Citadel to discover. Miranda herself, now that Shepard had recovered was silently wondering if there was any way that she could profit by this. After all, the beacon had been found on her land and clearly the visions it bestowed were worth something to someone.

Service Security was pulling out, carrying their dead psionic and promising to reschedule the commander's interrogation, with additional added questions. Shepard almost threw up on them at the very thought of having another stranger in his mind, but managed to control himself, barely. Miranda was less polite about it, but then again she wasn't subject to Service Security jurisdiction.

She pulled him to his feet and for the first time in a long while, neither of them flinched at the physical contact. He didn't even flinch as she put a Mind Shield (borrowed from one of her guards) against his throat. "Thanks for saving my mind. I gather it was particularly impressive."

"Yep," Miranda agreed. "Though," she forced herself to continue, "Tali helped. A lot."

"I need to remember to thank her for that too. Now, let's get out of here, this place is a dump."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

Miranda got him to his temporary quarters, mostly carrying him, grateful for her genetic and cybernetic enhancements, surrounded by a group of Combine military personnel (though not his own squad, as they'd been taken off to be re-debriefed and not be anywhere where they might drunkenly cause an interstellar incident) and by a squad of Lawson Industries security personnel who were trailing their CEO. She dumped him on the bed and resisted the urge to ask the question she wanted answered, but he was barely conscious. She could wait. A quick question and they were on for breakfast. Shepard was sound asleep before Miranda left his quarters.

He was so soundly asleep that he managed to sleep through several increasingly impressive alarms, until Ash was shaking him awake, with an announcement that the Krogan were here. Shepard managed not to punch her in the face as he woke up, mostly because his body felt like it had after the first day of boot camp and his limbs barely able to move.

"I'm going to miss breakfast, aren't I?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. There's no way I'm going to be able to stand up. Do I really need to be there for this?"

"Yes, sir."

"Help me up."

"Yes, sir."

Shepard managed to make it into the bathroom, shower, shave, brush his teeth, vomit in memory of yesterday and brush his teeth again without Ash's help, though he did need a bit of help getting his dress uniform on. Then they were away.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: C-Sec Psionic Team:_**

 _Citadel Security Services is divided into six divisions. The discovery of psionics did not end up effecting those divisions. Instead psionics were centrally trained and assigned to each of the divisions. Almost all of the C-Sec trained psionics are assigned to either the Investigation Division or the Special Response Division._

 _After a series of incidents where psionics were alternately ordered to do the impossible, or do nothing, or do incredibly dangerous things by commanding officers with no reasonable idea what their new subordinates were capable of, C-Sec was reorganized slightly and psionics, though a part of individual divisions and receiving their assignments from those divisions, are commanded and disciplined by other psionics (or specially trained superiors)._

 _This 'Psionic Team' permits the psionics to accomplish the tasks set to them without being micromanaged by people who don't know what they're doing. It has, however, also had the effect of separating them from their fellow officers. Psionic officers have a reputation for being coddled by the Psionic Team and given far more leeway than other officers, which has only exacerbated the separation._

 _Long term plans are in place to slowly phase out the Psionic Team and reintegrate psionics into C-Sec, however the privileges and comradery of the Psionic Team have led to the psionics within C-Sec opposing it, while the command level staff don't want the headache of dealing with a bunch of babied, telepathic mavericks. Even the rank-and-file aren't sure they want it, because they aren't sure they want to really work with the psionics._

 ** _Codex: Psionic Crimes:_**

 _Psionic crimes have historically been quite rare, both due to the prevalence of various forms of mental defenses and the fact that the majority of psionics are employed by governments and those who aren't are either employed or can subsist off the advance payment for the disassembly of their bodies after death. There are always exceptions, however._

 _Psionic crimes generally fall into two main categories. The first consist of stealing information out of someone's mind. This runs the gambit from snatching passwords to someone's bank account from the surface of their mind without doing any real damage to the victim (beyond stealing from them), all the way up to snatching up a senior scientist, killing her guards, ripping off her Mind Shield and shredding every neuron in her brain until every last corporate secret has been squeezed out. Various forms of psionic blackmail also fall under this category of psionic crime._

 _The second category of psionic crimes consist of mental domination of various sorts. From the simplest 'give me your watch' right up to 'be my slave'. These crimes are actually somewhat more common, as there's easier ways for psionics to make money then stealing information from the minds of people, while mind control can become something of an obsession, or fetish amongst some psionics, who tend towards repeat offenses._

 **Author's Note: This chapter came out a bit mushy, but I'm sticking with it. And Shepard even gets to sleep without the influence of a psionic, or a Prothean artifact. At long last. Reviews are always welcome.**


	16. Chapter 13: Unknown Family

**Chapter 13: Unknown Family**

 **Author's Note: And I'm back. Short chapter this time around, sorry about that.**

'The Krogan were here' proved to be both more and less of an exaggeration than Shepard had expected. The _New Dawn_ pursued its general practice of not remaining anywhere for very long, in order to ensure no one could eliminate the Alliance's main means of detterance (though the _New Dawn,_ like the _Destiny Ascension_ and the Hegemony's superdreadnought, was so large that any ship coming out of jump drive needed to do so at a range which exceeded that where a nuclear blast would be effective; so long as point defense systems remained intact, it would take a massive assault to sneak a shuttle loaded with nukes in close enough to do any damage).

Instead of that massive ship, there was a small, if heavily armed, courier vessel, hence less Krogan than he'd feared. Unfortunately, that ship carried Urdnot Wren, third son of Urdnot Wrex, come officially on behalf of his father to discuss matters with the Council. Hence, more Krogan than Shepard had hoped. And more ceremony than the commander ever liked to see. At least it had bought him time to get to the meeting.

 ** _Codex: Urdnot Wren, Unlocked._**

Wren came to meet with the Council in their chambers, with them standing on the platforms above the Krogan, casting him in the role of supplicant. It didn't fit well, as he was surrounded by his krantt armed and armored, for cultural reasons, while the Council's guards were not visible.

Ambassador Udina was likewise surrounded, though Shepard and his squad were in dress uniforms and weren't carrying weapons. Tali was also there, for no particular reason, other than Udina wanting every bit of power on his side of the room that he could justifiably muster. That probably also explained the pair of armored guards from his own troops, though they were likewise unarmed (though their movements screamed 'combat biotics' to the trained eye).

Urdnot Wren was announced by a larger Krogan, who led the younger, smaller Krogan to the front of the Counil chambers, then stood aside. Wren was flanked by a red-haired Human and a squat, powerfully built Vorcha.

"Welcome to the Citadel, representative of Overlord Wrex," Councilor Tevos said.

"My thanks," Wren growled. "Be it known that these are my krantt, Nakmor Drack," he waved at the Krogan, "Elder;" the Human, "Jane Shepard, Warrior;" the Vorcha, "Wrecker, Youth." The fact that his krantt was made up of three warriors, with those specific titles said something about which of the various Krogan traditions Wren followed, but no one in the room, except the Geth, was sufficiently conversant with the various Krogan traditions to know what exactly it indicated.

 ** _Codex: Krantt, Unlocked._**

Shepard kept himself from reacting in any way. The rest of his squad was not quite as disciplined and visibly twitched at the mention of a Shepard amongst the Urdnot warrior's krantt, the warriors who would kill and die in his name. Shepard's eyes didn't move and he continued to examine this krantt. Jane was about his age, and strongly built, a Carnifex on her hip and a heavy sniper rifle on her back, she was clearly an infiltrator. Drack had the build and scars of an old school soldier, and old Krogan warrior, cradling his Ruzad shotgun, with a heavy assault rifle on his back. Wrecker was carrying the standard Vorcha flamethrower, but something was missing…the creature lacked the Mind Shield the others wore. Odd, only psionics routinely went without the devices...A Vorcha psionic would truly be an oddity, but a team made up of a sniper, soldier, biotic (assuming Wren shared his father's abilities) and psionic would cover most potential threats, as well as posing a potent one.

"Honored," Councilor Tevos said politely, introducing her fellow Councilors and Ambassador Udina, leaving the more awkward portions of the conversation to her fellows, or even better, to the Combine ambassador, to permit her to maintain her position as the mediator and voice of reason.

Councilor Sparatus beat the Human to the point. "You're here as a representative of your father. What does Urdnot Wrex want from the Council?"

Kohrvan did not mutter something about his wanting all their heads on plates, because Ash gave the other woman a silent look that, in turn, silenced her.

" _Overlord_ Wrex requests access for myself to this beacon. I understand it shows visions to those biotics who touch it with their power. Biotics such as myself," Wren explained.

"The beacon is the property of the Council. Its knowledge is the property of the Council. Why should we share it with you?" Councilor Valern put in bluntly.

"Besides the fact that you wouldn't have it without our intervention?"

"Untrue!" Udina interjected. "Despite what the news may have said, the beacon was already out of the system before your ships even arrived."

"But that's not what everyone knows, is it?" Wren asked, sweetly.

"Since 'everyone' doesn't know about the beacon, what they 'know' is that you saved an independent colony. Which is awfully nice of you, but doesn't have anything to do with access to Council secrets," Udina countered.

Wren grinned, a friendly, but aggressive, movement and abandoned that line of attack, for his main argument. "There's also the fact that we know where the Hegemony Fleet ran off to. And that they aren't alone."

Sparatus, who'd stayed out of the debate over newsmedia and public relations, because he didn't care, did care about military movements, "And who's with them? A few Terminus gangs?" he fished, unsubtly.

"One, or more, of the factions of Geth," Wren put in, quite precisely.

There was a moment of silence as everyone absorbed that. Besides the Geth-Unity, the Geth factions did not work with organic species (though the Geth-Slaver made use of organics).

"That is…improbable," Councilor Valern noted.

"So we thought, and yet it has occurred. Even more worrisome, is the unidentified ship, tentatively identified as belonging to the Collectors."

"The Collectors are little more than a myth. Cover for whatever criminals can convince the public that their crimes were committed by aliens from beyond the Omega 4 relay," Sparatus argued.

"And yet, our scouts have positively identified the ship as the same one which has been spotted entering the Omega 4 relay. And I would have thought the Salarians would have shared their proof of the Collectors' existence with this Council."

"What?" Tevos asked, when Valern declined to invite the Krogan to continue with his accusation.

"It was an STG unit which kidnapped Okeer and the Collectors he was trading Krogan children to right out from under my dear brother's nose, wasn't it? If not, I should know so that I can properly mock him for that loss, regardless of how much he now bleats that all he wanted was to recover the children."

"The Hegemony, a faction of the Geth and the Collectors all in one system. Is this the beginning of a joke, or are we meant to take these unevidenced claims seriously?" Valern said, turning the discussion from matters he truly did not wish to discuss with the Council as a whole. The rest of the Council let him get away with it, at least in front of representatives of the Combine and the Alliance, there would be more discussions, in private, he was sure.

"I will happily provide you not merely evidence, but the system location, once I have gained this…vision of the Protheans," Wren said.

Tevos spoke before her fellows could. "Unfortunately, a trade is difficult to support here, where there is no true trust. Once you have gained access to the beacon, we can hardly call back the knowledge of what you've seen, even if your claims all prove false."

"Not without actions which would violate your status as diplomatic envoy, at least," Valern put in. "And which I doubt you would volunteer for?"

That last question had a hook on the end, which Wren dodged. "No need, no need, for, so long as the Council agrees to my terms, I'm more than happy to go first and trust to the Council's honor that they will fulfill their side of our bargain."

"Even so, the business with the Hegemony is of little concern to the Council and though we, along with the Council, fight those factions of the Geth which fail to follow the true path, finding some minor nest of the Geth-Slaver, or Geth-Genocidal is hardly something worth what you ask. As representative of the Combine, I would be willing to purchase the information you claim to have, but your price is too high and you offer it to the wrong party," Udina corrected the Krogan, despite the alien being decades older than Udina..

"Except the superdreadnought is there. Everyone wants to take it apart and figure out how that thing works. And I know everyone's wondering where it came from, because it surely wasn't built by the Hegemony. _And_ I know everyone's wondering why the Hegemony was willing to risk it to attempt to capture a Prothean Beacon. Go there, take the ship and find the answers to all those questions. Or let the Hegemony, which you," he turned to Udina, "invaded and you," he turned to the Council, "betrayed, gather forces and allies in the Terminus systems unmolested until they are prepared to act."

There was a moment of silence in response to that. Then Udina jumped in before the councilors could. "The Alliance gives us questions. The Combine provides an answer, without asking for payment. There is no Hegemony any longer."

The blunt statement drew stares. "What have you done?" Sparatus asked, always paranoid, always hostile.

"With their fleet elsewhere, we sent in scouts and found Khar'shan depopulated. We have solid reports that three of the four previously occupied systems within the cluster are likewise depopulated and will have reports on the fourth by the end of the day and from all previously unoccupied systems in the Kite's Nest within five days. We have no basis to expect anything other than what we've already found. Preliminary indications suggest some sort of civil war, but civil wars don't entirely depopulate a sector. There were orbital strikes on Khar'shan, but beyond that, we have no evidence as to what happened to the population. Complete files will be transferred to the Council at the end of this meeting."

Kohrvan did move a little at that, jaw dropping, almost speaking, but a slight twitch of Ash's hand had Shalira's bulk between the Batarian and all observers, giving her a little privacy to react to this news, unkindly delivered. But none of the soldiers could rightfully speak in this gathering of politicians.

"I assume this was not the action of the Combine?" Valern asked, more to get the formal denial on the record than because he expected any other response, regardless of the truth of the matter.

"Indeed not. Besides being completely unethical, if it were us, that fleet out there would be screaming it to the high heavens. Frankly, I'm a little surprised they're not, even though it would be a lie."

"There were _billions_ of people in that sector when it was sealed off. You say they are now all dead?" Councilor Tevos asked, actually shocked and letting it show through.

"I say they are now all gone, perhaps into death, perhaps somewhere else, though moving billions is no easy task, especially given how few ships they had left and how much damage the rebels and X-Com alike had done to their infrastructure."

"A mystery indeed," Valern muttered in the tone of one who hated mysteries.

"One whose answer lies in the only remaining Hegemony fleet," Wren put in, as Tevos began to believe Udina had set him up for, to get the Council to buy the information she was beginning to believe the Combine actually wanted, without the Combine having to pay for it, despite his earlier claims to the contrary.

"Commander Shepard," she said.

He stepped forward and stood at attention before the Council, ignoring the Krogan and his krantt. "Yes, ma'am?"

"You saw this 'vision,' did you not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Will you permit a Council psionic to take a copy of the vision from your mind, for our review and, perhaps, to be shared with the Krogan, if we so choose?"

Shepard tried to keep from reacting to the idea of letting some other asshole into his head to poke around. He failed, but he did manage to keep his voice steady. "If ordered to do so, by my superiors, ma'am."

The Councilors deliberately turned to stare at Ambassador Udina. Silence stretched uncomfortably. Wren smiled broadly at the air of conflict in the room. "Of course, such an order can be forthcoming, as a favor to our friends and allies on the Council," Udina said after deciding the Council wasn't actually going to request that he order a Combine soldier to let them probe his mind, just because such an order was possibly illegal absent a court order on the Citadel.

"The information in his head is Prothean technology, which you're required to turn over to this Council. I don't believe anything is owed for that, but that's a matter that doesn't concern the Krogan," Sparatus interjected.

"Are you willing to accept the vision transferred from the commander's head?" Tevos asked, as she silently received confirmation from her fellows, that the compromise she'd proposed the moment she heard what Wren wanted was acceptable. "We will not, however, give you physical access to the beacon."

"So long as my own psionic oversees the transfer as well, yes, I will."

Tevos considered for a moment. Liara had reported the vision was jumbled and the current thinking was that that was a result of the message being designed for a Prothean brain, which originated from a different culture and were physically different. There were sometimes psionic miscommunications between species and all of them shared a far greater base of commonality than anyone had with the extinct Protheans.

"We have an agreement then, yes?"

"Agreed," Urdnot Wren said, before either of the other councilors could interject, as if he imagined she was making the choice without reference to the others.

"Good. I will ask your aid, Ms. Zorah, in transferring the vision to Urdnot Wren and several dozen Prothean experts of all species to attempt to make more sense of it. If you should decode anything out of the vision, please let us know, Mr. Wren," Tevos chose, having achieved the agreement to let him know that the prize he sought would be more widely shared, though she didn't mention that at least one of the people she'd ensure was on the list to get the vision would be another Krogan.

Shepard, trying to distract himself from the impending repeated mind-fuckery, wanted to turn the conversation to what exactly was going to be done with the location once it was found. X-Com, the STG, Turian Intelligence, and Spectres all operated large forces within the Terminus (which was where the remains of the Hegemony fleet had to be hiding) and any approach except a single, unified one risked turning into a literal farce. He did not say anything, as his opinion had not been requested.

 ** _Codex: Turian Intelligence, Unlocked._**

Sparatus, despite clearly having something large lodged someplace uncomfortable, did note the potential problem and was even willing to bring it up. "All the powers capable of significant power projection into the Terminus are present here. I expect we all have questions regarding this matter. We should ensure we coordinate our…responses to avoid accidentally have any sort of interstellar incident."

"The Hegemony has never withdrawn from this Council, even if their ambassador was never replaced," Tevos pointed out. "We can hardly attack them—" Wren started to say something sardonic, she could see it, but she got there first, "regardless of the unfortunate involvement of the Combine and the Hegemony in each other's internal affairs."

"Did anyone even see any of the crew of the fleet that attacked Purasi?" Valern asked. "How sure are we that they were Batarians and not whomever destroyed the Hegemony?"

"A review of the scans of the debris from the destroyed ships should answer that question," Sparatus said.

There was an awkward silence until Wren explained that no, the Alliance didn't follow Hierarchy protocols and hadn't done any scans of the debris field beyond those necessary to determine that there wasn't anything valuable to salvage from them. Udina admitted, without any shame that the Combine hadn't done scans either, as they'd been a bit busy escaping with the Citadel's prize.

"We will need to contact the Purasi authorities and dispatch our own investigators then," Valern said, a little irritably.

"Regardless, there are questions which we need answers to, and fast," Udina put in.

"That's what Spectres are for," Valern pointed out, without mentioning that it was also what the STG was for.

"Saren is here and read into…some of this," Sparatus argued, considering the sheer amount of new information which they'd received. "And I'm sure he would would be pleased to accept the assistance of more crewmembers from the Combine, for his new ship." This offer would give everyone the same information, while on a ship under the command of a Turian Spectre where…anything could happen.

"An interesting suggestion," Urdnot Wren said. "Let's see this vision first and learn what these people wanted to see so badly." Whether he meant that, or he was just buying time to get what he wanted wasn't clear.

"When we have the information you promised," Tevos said, then continued as if she was not scrambling to get representatives of Republics into position to ensure that no information was lost between Saren's eyes and the reports he made to the Council, "If this is a third party, then we may need to make first contact. We can send along Matriarch…" she almost said Lan'asi, as the woman had handled the Combine situation well enough, but remembered that Liara would be staying here, heavily involved in this, dangerous, matter and that she really didn't want to have to deal with the archaeologist's mother, after permitting that, "Benezia and a team of experts to handle that if it becomes necessary."

"If there's new tech, you will need experts to decipher it. The Union will provide," Valern put in as they sweetly split the work between them along the usual military-political-scientific angles they each tried to play. Of course that wasn't completely accurate. Benezia would have techs and commandos in her entourage, and there would be STG shooters and political analysts in the Salarian team. Only Saren would probably stick to his assigned role, confident in his ability to gain compliance and information from the experts the others would send.

With the Combine providing much of the crew, each power would have independent confirmation of what was found. It would minimize the chance of a brilliant discovery unshared by the others, but also minimize the chances that they'd end up shooting each other, or suing each other over a stolen discovery. At least on that ship. Whether other ships would be sent was a matter for their respective governments to decide.

"Well, then, the only question is where they will be sent," Sparatus agreed and the Councilors turned the full force of their attention on Urdnot Wren, who smiled and politely agreed that he would, indeed go first, as soon as they'd restated their agreement for the single-use legal recorder he'd brought along.

 ** _Codex: Legal Recorder, Unlocked_.**

A few minutes of awkward legalese and negotiation over phrasing followed, which the Combine managed to stay out of, though their eyes were beginning to glaze over by the time they agreed on wording and spoke the agreements into the device which would give it at least a presumption of legality and authenticity.

A moment later, Urdnot Wren had passed over the location of the fleet on a connectionless omni-tool he'd been carrying in his mouth (on the correct theory that a Krogan stomach would leave nothing of the device to be recovered if he needed to destroy it and that the Alliance's electronic security really wasn't up to modern electronic warfare standards).

"Then we'll hold up our end of the agreement as soon as we have confirmation," Tevos said.

"Of course, I have complete confidence in that. And I will enjoy the…hospitality of this station until then," Wren's grin was a savage thing which suggested that his enjoyment might involve fire, explosions and large quantities of alcohol and/or blood.

"We'll contact you as soon as we have confirmation," Tevos said, dismissing the Krogan and only wishing she could as easily dismiss her concern over the damage he might do and the complaints the Council would receive regarding the behavior of someone who they were going to have to handle with kid gloves.

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Urdnot Wren:_**

 _Unlike his older brothers, little is known about the third son of the first clutch of Urdnot Wrex. Though all the first clutch were born in the 2110s when Wrex's scientists successfully 'cured' the genophage and altered Krogan breeding patterns, Wren has remained mostly out of the spotlight for the seventy years of his life. It's not even widely known which of the Urdnot Female Clan's women birthed him and his siblings._

 _His eldest brother, Urdnot Wrince has made a name for himself by leading reprisals against those who attacked the Terminus Alliance, most famously leading his krantt against Dahlia Dantius and her band of slavers, culminating in a recorded duel do the death, in which he killed the Asari, messily, despite lacking his father's biotics._

 _The second oldest brother, Urdnot Wring has made a name for himself by bringing various independent Krogan groups under the dominion of Overlord Wrex. Most Krogan followed Overlord Wrex from the moment he returned with a 'cure' for the genophage. However, some remained independent, especially those who believed the 'cure' should return the Krogan to the days of thousands of children in a clutch. Most famously, Ganar Yulaz, leader of the Blood Pack attempted to maintain his independence by seeking to gain control of Heshtok and its almost infinite supplies of Vorcha. Wring arranged a meeting and, when Yulaz inevitably attempted to ambush him and his krantt, discovered that Wring had suborned several senior Vorcha leaders, who blocked the arrival of the mercenary's reinforcements, leaving Yulaz to die writhing on Wring's claws._

 _Meanwhile Wren has never been recorded as leaving the_ New Dawn _. Despite this, he apparently keeps out of both Krogan politics and religion. The only thing known about him is that, like his father, and unlike his elder brothers, he is a biotic._

 ** _Codex: Krantt:_**

 _A krantt consists of warriors who will fight for, or speak for, a Krogan. Though a Warlord may have thousands of warriors under his command, and an Overlord even more, a krantt is more than that. It consists of those the leader trusts not merely to kill for him, but also to represent him where he is absent, or stand at his back without putting a knife in it. Besides serving as bodyguards, they are often advisors, or ambassadors, trusted not to embarrass their leader, as much as fight beside him (though a Krogan definition of embarrassment may not track with that of most other sapient species)._

 _Traditionally, a krantt is a small number of followers, with the number and composition varying depending on which rites the Krogan leader observes. The most common are two person krantts, (which, with the leader, form a three person team, representing a Krogan hand), with the remainder being made up mostly of three person krantts (with the leader represented the closed fist which his followers make up), four person krantts (one for each limb, with the leader being the Krogan body), or six person krantts (both hands, with the leader being a disembodied controller)._

 _Even amongst those who agree on the number of a krantt, the internal structure varies wildly. The most common, two person krantts have two main types, one dualistic with each members of the krantt arguing opposite sides in any course of action and the leader making a decision based on who he thinks was victorious, to ensure decisions can stand up to conflict, as the Krogan say. The other, directly antagonistic requires the two members of the krantt to argue with every major decision (outside combat) the leader makes, to ensure that the leader's decisions and the leader himself, can overcome hostility and triumph despite being outnumbered.._

 _All of the above is philosophy and ritual. Krogan follow it to much the same degree other species do. That is, some follow it religiously (literally and figuratively) and some ignore all but the outer bounds of the forms._

 _Though a krantt is usually hierarchical with a single leader, it is not uncommon, in instances where a member of the krantt requires the services of a krantt of their own, for the usual leader to serve as a member of their, the usual member's, krantt._

 ** _Codex: Turian Intelligence:_**

 _Turian Intelligence is, as the name suggests, the intelligence branch of the Hierarchy. Historically spies were of minimal value in Turian conflicts where strong internal, hierarchical loyalties, and controls on external travel and communication made spies extremely uncommon and generally ineffective._

 _So, when the Hierarchy needed to create its own intelligence services to handle dealing with other, more open, powers, it turned to what it did have in skilled abundance, scouts. This did not prove terribly effective. However, as more Turians moved outside the Hierarchy and the Vol Protectorate joined the Hierarchy, their pool of recruits grew. Volus and external recruits make up a plurality of the field operatives._

 _Turian Intelligence is not the equal of the STG, or the Spectres, however it has grown into a respectable organization, with unparalleled reach in financial intelligence and external observation due to their access to Hierarchy Fleet observations._

 ** _Codex: Legal Recorder:_**

 _In a universe of easy digital, physical and psionic manipulation of witnesses and recordings, the legal recorder is the non-Combine answer to the question of how the law can know what really happened. Where Combine citizens generally ask for the Geth to witness important document signings and such, the rest of the Citadel relies on single use, non-receiving recorders, with built in holo-detectors._

 _Legal recorders originated as cameras for various news organizations, dealing with issues of edited footage from field reporters. However, they are most commonly used now to record agreements. Their complete lack of receiving capability makes them also useful as security cameras, but their expense means that they tend to be used only for_ very _high end areas._

 _Though legal recorders are generally effective, there are still ways around them and therefore their records are only granted a presumption of accuracy. The legal recorder is only granted a presumption of accuracy if the original recording device is presented to the court and therefore destroying, or stealing the original is a common fictional trope, as well as an actually common goal of criminal actors, or just people who want out of their contracts._

 **Author's Note: Sorry for the short chapter folks, but I'm back and mostly recovered from the last months. Reviews are always welcome.**


	17. Chapter 14: Unknown Kin

**Chapter 14: Unknown Kin**

 **Author's Note: Well, it's been a while, but some more story comes forth from my brain…  
**

 **Also, I've updated all the earlier chapters with typo/formatting corrections. As always, let me know if I've missed anything.** **  
**

Shepard's brain hurt. He knew that was impossible. There were no nerves in his brain to hurt. That knowledge did not do anything about the fact that he was beginning to feel like almost like that traitorous psionic whose brains had, he heard, melted out his ears.

The Council and the ambassador had come up with twenty-seven people of every known species (except Vorcha) who they could both classify as Prothean experts and trusted, for a limited meaning of both. Tali wasn't even tired, despite prying the memories out of his head and shoving them into other peoples' more than two dozen times. Honestly, he almost wished that Tali had just held onto whatever it was, despite his standard overprotectiveness.

At least they were done now and he was free to sit still without anyone prodding his body, or brain. His squad was stood down and they were inside the ambassador's perimeter, eating, sleeping, or flirting with the ambassador's staff, or, in the case of Maale, attempting to do all three at once, which really shouldn't have been possible.

This wasn't important, except insofar as it meant that he was free to relax, as best he could. Head back against the wall, eyes closed, he didn't notice Miranda's approach until she was less than ten meters away. Embarrassing, that, but a thought set one of his implants releasing enough of the right chemicals in his brain to block out the pain helping him recover enough to be able to speak as she sat down next to him, though he didn't bother opening his eyes, but was grateful he'd remembered to cancel their breakfast. "Miri, what can I do for you?"

"I changed my perfume. Are my footsteps really that distinctive?"

"Yes."

"You know, I'm going to have to have the software in my implants checked just to figure that out."

"I wish you wouldn't, it's nice."

Miranda stared at him. "What?"

Shepard shrugged awkwardly, trying to put in words, "It's part of what I associate with you. I'm not real big on change."

"Then you're in the wrong line of work, _commander_."

"Maybe," he admitted tiredly.

"I'm surprised you'd admit it."

Shepard forced himself to sit up and open his eyes. Miranda was as lovely as ever, in yet another razor-edged suit, with a (presumably, but not definitively) different pair of Lawson Industries' guards lurking in the background. "I'm surprised you're here. Don't you have a company to run?"

"It mostly runs itself. Perks of being CEO."

"I know exactly how much you work Miri, and you definitely don't have time to come sit with me just because I've got a headache."

Miranda tilted her head in judicious admission of a point being made, "Eventually someone remembered that I'd been inside your head, just like all these other poor fools and started to worry I might have seen something classified. So they're bribing me to stick around until this whole mess leaks out."

"Bribing you?" Shepard tried to inject a note of curiosity or warning into his voice, but his sheer exhaustion made it a mostly futile effort.

"My lawyers tell me that I'm not allowed to bribe foreign officials, there's apparently nothing in the law preventing me from being bribed _by_ foreign officials."

"That doesn't seem right."

"The Combine's concerned about corrupting foreign governments, not corrupt foreign governments corrupting corporations."

"That doesn't seem right," Shepard repeated.

"And they aren't paying me to do anything illegal, just stick around."

"Ah, that might help," Shepard admitted, then his brain finally worked, "Wait, what are they paying you?"

"The Salarian Union is giving Lawson Industries permission to set up a research station on Jartar."

 ** _Codex: Jartar, Unlocked._**

"Jartar?"

"World the Hegemony stole the Leviathan of Dis from," Miranda glossed.

"Ah, the Area 51 of Citadel Space," John said.

"Are 51?"

"The Jartar of old Earth," he glossed, in turn, leaning forward with a smirk.

She laughed. "Can I ask a question?"

"You've asked plenty of them, Miri, why the hesitation now?"

"Because this one comes from poking around in your head, again."

"Yeah, not so pissed about it this time," Shepard said, deliberately keeping himself from stiffening at the reminder of her previous actions. "Ask away."

"After everything was over, I asked and you said no. I thought it was because you were pissed about the whole attempted mind scan thing. But well, your memory was real clear about what weren't the reasons you said no, but not why you did say no."

Shepard leaned back in his seat, surprised by the direction she'd taken the conversation. "After…everything was finished," his hands twitched, "I was surprised you asked given how things ended."

"I was impressed, not horrified, by your abilities," she interrupted, remembering what he'd thought she was feeling. "If that's what you thought."

"I wasn—I was, wasn't I?" he asked, realizing why she'd jumped to that thought

"Yes."

"That's…thank you. I hadn't realized how much that bugged me."

"You're welcome," she leaned slightly against him, offering support if he wanted to take it, but not pushing.

He didn't lean into her. "But you asked a question. You asked why I said no. This is going to sound like a line, but it's not, just listen to me all the way to the end, okay." He did lean into her then, just a little.

"Okay," Miranda was a little worried about that.

"It wasn't about you. It was about me. As the Corps' shrinks have told me at every mandated session I've ever had, I have control issues. I constructed my personality in defiance of the narrative I'd constructed for why the other Shepards had followed Wrex into treason. They let emotions motivate them to break their oaths and betray their nation. I therefore will not permit emotion to dictate my reactions."

"Okay, but you—"

"-are not done. You saw me completely lose control. I've never done that before or since and I didn't know how to deal with it. Still don't, really. So I…well, I guess if I was being honest, I'd say I ran. It was a cowardly thing to do and I'm sorry about it."

He stared straight ahead at the wall opposite them, which contained absolutely nothing which could be considered interesting.

"Well, shit," Miranda muttered.

"I—"

"My turn to talk," she interrupted him. "You planning to run again?"

He didn't make a joke about whether or not it was his turn to talk, or about the fact that he didn't think he could run at this moment. It wasn't the time and though usually he liked to break the tension in this moment he didn't want to change the mood. "My schedule isn't mine to control, but to the extent it is, no."

"Good answer. Bring us some food," she ordered one of her guards and waved the other to bring over a table.

"I'm not even sure I can stand up at this point," Shepard said, but he was smiling.

"That's why I'm having them bring over the food and a table. No need to get up."

"You'll spoil me."

She smirked back at him, "Then you'll just have to return the favor."

"When I can stand up again."

"It's a date."

 **XXXXX**

Saren was beginning to lose his mind. It wasn't so much that he hated the other races as it was that he hated having _anyone_ around who wasn't under his direct command. And the dozens of new people who were pouring onto the _Ghost_ , while nominally under his command, were obviously loyal to other groups and only barely even pretending to loyalty to him. Even the other Turians had their own agendas. Infuriating.

At least the X-Com representative admitted he had no interest in obeying Saren and was happily maintaining his own powerbase by keeping his own ship attached to the _Ghost_. Of somewhat more interest was that C-Sec surveillance had seen a woman slip off the X-Com vessel before it launched from the Citadel to rejoin the _Ghost_. It was always good to identify people affiliated with X-Com. Unfortunately, the surveillance didn't get much more than a shadowed figure that was probably female and Human, or Asari.

Irritating, but probably not relevant to his current mission which was to sneak into the Terminus, visit a massive fleet made up of Batarians, Geth and _Collectors_ (allegedly) and find out what the fuck they were up to. He'd never even wanted to refuse an assignment before, but this one came close. Which was why he'd decided to let the X-Com agent come along as he definitely wanted more firepower and that ship had stealth systems he wanted to use (and learn the secrets of).

He'd retired to the captain's quarters and was examining the files of his new, irritating officers. Though, he still had nothing at all on the X-Com agent, he did have complete files on everyone else. Most of the Combine personnel were naval crew, with only a pair of marines assigned. As he had his own crew and most of the Combine folks weren't assigned for this mission, but had been on the shipbuilding project (and he wasn't letting any Geth onboard), he only had those two new problems to worry about.

It was moderately irritating that his complete files on Staff Lieutenant Alenko didn't contain more information than the fact that he was biotic, a member of the Sentinel Corps and formerly part of the ambassador's guard on the Citadel. Still, from talking to him, Saren was fairly sure that Kaidan Alenko was appointed because he was steady, tough, loyal and already on the Citadel. He was Udina's man, through and through.

His fellow marine, Lieutenant James Vega was more worrisome. Vanguard Corps, on leave on the Citadel, this was the first time he'd ever left the Combine, which obviously made him some sort of internal security. A dangerous sort, as he was Vanguard Corps. And he just coincidentally happened to be on the Citadel when all this occurred. It stretched credulity. But, as the Hierarchy had provided a dozen marines under the command of a Lieutenant Tarquin Victus, he wasn't too worried about direct combat with the Combine soldiers and a Victus ought to able to keep up with one or two Human.

The Salarian team was led by a Doctor Gotum Eou, an expert in ship design and construction, with a dozen other experts in potentially relevant fields filling out their ranks. The doctor seemed relatively harmless, but Saren was certain that at least some of his subordinates were STG and his second in command, Kirrahe didn't even bother to pretend that he didn't think the Salarians (and by extension, he himself) should be in charge of this 'research' mission.

At least the Asari, led by Matriarch Benezia were easy to deal with, but he knew better than to let himself relax around them. They'd be trying to manipulate the situation to their advantage and that meant manipulating him. Dealing with matriarchs was always tricky as both their perspective and their experience made them difficult to predict and handle. At least her guards were the usual collection of maiden commandos, not particularly dangerous for anyone trained to handle biotics, as all Victus's troops were.

The _Ghost_ had gone from almost empty to rather too full, but Saren's quarters remained off limits, partly because he was acting as the ship's captain, but mostly because the handful of Turians who'd worked with him before made sure he had a place to be alone and think, because they knew better than to deny him his alone space anywhere but the field.

Even worse, the trip was not going to be short, as the Batarians, or whomever manned their fleet, had chosen an out of the way system in the Terminus as their rally point. The fact that the system was populated mostly by Batarians, independent of both the Hegemony and the Combine made him rather dubious of the Combine's claims of Batarian extinction. Still, he'd find out soon enough. Well, actually, no, he'd find out eventually, whether it would be either 'soon enough' or 'too late' was up in the air.

Regardless, he needed to weld all the disparate pieces together into a single unit and he only knew one way to do that without resorting to calling in a giant team of Watchers from the Hierarchy and having them mind control everyone into getting along. That was to torture everyone with an endless parade of drills until they (1) learned to work together and (2) were united in their hatred of him. Unfortunately, he didn't have that long and he needed everyone to arrive in good shape and not to shoot him in the back, which meant that this was going to be a tricky balancing act and not a whole lot of fun for anyone.

 ** _Codex: Watchers, Unlocked._**

 **XXXXX**

"You think that's bad? Last time I was on security detail for V—a senior Salarian, I ended up having to play blocker between him and his _mother_. Do you know how loud a Salarian can shout? I didn't until I was being yelled at by a senior Dalatrass of the Salarian Union," Garrus said, leaning against the doorjam.

"Pshaw, that's nothing," Shepard countered, leaning against the other side of the large doorjam.

"By the end, she was speaking so fast that the computer translator couldn't keep up! It literally sounded like a series of chirps and clicks mixed in with the occasional successfully translated profanity!"

Though they were right next to one another, they didn't look at one another, instead they kept their eyes focused on the corridor. Shalira and a C-Sec officer were further out, keeping out civilians and acting as outer perimeter. The other members of their squad were inside the large lab which was stuffed with the archaeologists and historians Tali had stuffed his memories into.

"Please. Getting sworn at by the mother is nothing! I had a protectee who was sixteen years old. I don't even want to tell you some of the things I saw. If I never have to keep a crying ex away from a protectee ever again, it will still be too soon. I swear, kids have some sort of magic limpness which makes them impossible to move when they don't want to. Carrying a weeping football player off the protectee's lawn was bad enough, but when prom came around, I discovered she'd arranged to go with eight separate people as, she informed me and all of them, when they showed up, a protest about the pressures to be monogamous in Batarian society. Freaking teenagers. I thought there was going to be a riot right there at the school."

"You win. I've never had to protect anyone who wasn't an adult. Though some of them didn't act like it. That's how I acquired my working knowledge of the Citadel's seedier clubs."

"Now, see, you're lucky you said that to me. If you'd said that to Ash, you'd be giving her a tour of those clubs the moment you were off duty."

Garrus shrugged, flicking a glance over his shoulder at the other Human and he shuddered delicately. "Thanks for the warning."

"Don't like Humans?" Shepard asked, tone bleak, face a cold mask.

"No, no, no, that's not what I meant, I was just-" Garrus's hands waving desperately as he tried to find to pull his foot out of his mouth and back away at the same time without resorting to an awkward hop.

Shepard's mask cracked and he smirked at the Turian, "Too easy, Vakarian."

Garrus relaxed, slowly as he realized what had happened. "You're just messing with me?"

"Obviously," Shepard felt surprisingly comfortable around the Turian. Perhaps it was simply that the other man had seen him at a horrible low point, with a psionic attempting to rip his mind apart, or maybe they just worked together, it was hard to say. Which was why he'd pushed that easy camaraderie just a little bit away and also why he wanted it back, having done so.

"I'll remember that."

"Do."

"Hmmph."

They stood in silence for a moment. "Any news on the investigation into the gentleman who tried to screw with my head?"

"He really is who he appeared to be, not a surgical or Meld created duplicate, nor does he show any of the indicators of being a force grown clone."

"Besides a clone wouldn't be likely to have the needed psionic abilities."

"Depends how many you make. You hear rumors about what X-Com's up to."

"There's always rumors, but if he doesn't show signs of enhanced growth, there's no way a clone would be old enough to pass. Besides, that still leaves the question of what happened to the original and why anyone would go to all that effort."

"To get ahold of whatever was in your head that's worth all this, obviously," Garrus said, waving a hand back at the massive lab area they were guarding.

"Yeah, but I didn't know that this was coming. I don't see how anyone else could either. Activating a long-term agent, or maybe corrupting a soldier in the time between us getting the info and our arrival here is just barely possible. Anything else, not so much."

"It's always possible some other operation was diverted, but you're right, that suggests that however he was compromised was quite a while back. After he was going to be assigned to the Citadel is the obvious time to target him."

"Unless whoever he was working for had the power to get him assigned here," Shepard put in, more to contribute than because he expected a massive conspiracy.

"That's the Combine's problem. I'm more interested in the whole, brain-melting, thing. That's much more unique than some compromised soldier."

"Well, it wasn't the result of the traps the Sentinel Corps put in my head, those don't do that," Shepard offered.

"And I don't see how it could be whatever's in your head that causes brain-melting disease, seeing as Ms. Zorah was able to pull it out of your head and Ms. Lawson was able to dig around in your head without frying."

"Which leaves us with the obvious."

"Some sort of defense mechanism to prevent interrogation. Lends support to the long-term agent and conspiracy theory," Garrus agreed.

"Yeah. Still with one data point, any speculation would be pretty pointless," Shepard said.

"I don't know, their tactics and abilities tell us something. They've got some significant scientific and/or psionic capability. And their people are loyal enough to be willing to let them put a suicide switch in their head."

"Assuming it's voluntary and that they know what's going on," Shepard countered.

"Force has its risks. Hard to believe any sort of serious conspiracy could survive like that. All it takes is one person following procedure and reporting it to bring the whole thing down. And it's way too risky to try to lie to any sort of competent agent like that. Sooner or later the fail-safe would get triggered and anyone who saw would know what had really been put in their head."

"Assuming they know Mr. Melty was a member of their group."

"Fair p—" Garrus stopped talking as the news that the Krogan team had arrived at the outer perimeter, requesting admittance. That news reached Shepard at the exact same time. The Council had issued very specific orders on how this situation was to be handled.

A sharp command from Shepard had Tali falling back into a safe-room off the main lab area and activating broad-spectrum anti-psionic jammers in the main area. The heavy doors behind them that protected the safe-room would keep the jamming signal from touching anyone outside.

Garrus confirmed the Krogan were allowed inside to his outer perimeter. Shalira escorted the quartet to the main door, where Garrus and Shepard were standing, no longer leaning on the doorjam, but instead at a rigid attention which nevertheless left their hands quite close to their weapons.

Urdnot Wren led the way, flanked and guarded by his Krantt. Wren stopped and the older Krogan, Nakmor Drack stepped forward, to loom menacingly over Garrus. The other Shepard stood opposite John, with the Vorcha watching their back, though he was dwarfed by Shalira who'd followed them in. "Urdnot Wren demands entrance to this lab, in accordance with the agreement made with the Council."

"You may enter, if you wish. However, no one will be permitted to leave until the Council gives permission," Garrus said.

"That was not in the agreement," Wren snapped, sliding forward.

"The Council does not break its agreements. _You_ are demanding access before we've confirmed the accuracy of your information. Permission to leave will be forthcoming either when the mystery is resolved, or after your information is confirmed, whichever comes first. This is a courtesy the Council has chosen to extend to you in order to permit you to evaluate the information beginning now, rather than when your information is confirmed."

"And should they claim we lied, they'll say they've got the right to keep us here forever," Drack said, rumbling into Garrus's face, despite the fact that he was talking to Wren.

"Should you breach our agreement, yes, we would have every right to prevent you from absconding with what you had stolen," Garrus agreed, without flinching back.

Drack's head snapped forward in a head-butt, which the Turian mostly dodged. Even the glancing impact might have knocked him backwards, but for the **barrier** which snapped up around him, courtesy of Shepard.

Jane started forward towards John, only to be waved back by Wren. "Sorry about that, officer. A cultural misunderstanding. The head-butt is merely emphatic, not assault for a Krogan. Drack sometimes forgets this in dealing with outsiders."

Given Jane's almost-attack and Drack's age, that was an obvious lie and an attempt to cast himself as the reasonable one in the group.

"Interesting," Shepard said as Garrus recovered. "Because it's culturally appropriate for a Sentinel to use his biotics—"

"Or her tail," Shalira hissed from behind them, looming threateningly over the diminutive Vorcha who was keeping her from Wren's back. The Vorcha twitched back slightly from Shalira, keeping his hands spread away from his sides and the weapons holstered there, though as there was clearly a flamer built into his gauntlet, that was less disarming than usual.

"Or her tail," Shepard agreed, "to rip off the head of anyone who attempts to attack his—or her—protectee. Isn't it interesting to learn about other cultures?"

"Aggressive. I like it!" Drack said with a smirk.

"No can rip off head with biotics," the Vorcha stated dismissively, then suddenly afflicted with self-doubt, "right, Wren?"

Wren's eyes flickered over the stoic Sentinel and the looming Viper, grateful for the wide-spread of his eyes. "No comment, but I think she could probably rip your head off. Not mine, or Drack's though."

"Shall we test that theory?" Shalira hissed, clawed hands flexing, empty of any weapon but those nature had given her, but not thereby less threatening.

"No, I don't think we shall," Wren answered, when Shepard declined to slap down his own subordinate.

"What is your decision? Come in, or wait?" Garrus asked, rather eager to get this matter resolved, before the Combine, or the Krogan could do something stupid.

"I'll come in. They'll come with me," Wren said with the calm certainty of a man stating an obvious fact, not one volunteering a trio of his independent fellows for an unknown period of detention. Wren, at least, was absolutely certain of their loyalty. As they didn't flinch, or hesitate in response to that statement, his trust was not misplaced.

"Then come, and be welcome," Garrus said, signaling for the door to be opened. Shepard shifted position slightly, ostensibly to clear the door, actually to ensure he had a clear line of sight as the jamming signal filling the lab spilled out into the hallway, to see which of the Krogan's allies flinched and revealed themselves as the psionic, or psionics of the group.

His attention was split amongst the four of them, as despite his earlier exposure to the Vorcha and its lack of a Mind Shield, he had a hard time believing that there could even be psionic Vorcha. It was, therefore, lucky that the Vorcha's reaction was so powerful, Shepard might have missed a flinch. As he instead huddled over, gagging, but not vomiting (Vorcha did not generally vomit, instead adapting to thrive on contaminated food).

Wren spun to see his comrade's distress and bellowed an order that the jammer be shut off, as the source of the Vorcha's distress was obvious. Weapons appeared in Drack's hands and Jane's, the massive Krogan closing and the Human slipping backwards, interposing herself between Wren, the injured Vorcha and Shalira, who was retreating just enough to not trigger violent instincts.

Shepard gave the order and the doors slid shut again, cutting off the jamming signal. "Oh, dear. I wish we'd known one of you was a psionic, we'd have warned you about the psionic defenses," he said with utterly insincere sympathy. Fortunately, they were too distracted to point out that they'd said the transfer would need to be overseen by their own psionic.

"A _Vorcha_ psionic?" Garrus asked, stunned at the very idea, Vorcha not exactly being famed for their mental prowess. It took him a moment to recover while the Alliance warriors formed a living wall around their rapidly-recovering psionic, then the detective's brain began to combine a few things and his mandibles drooped for a moment, shocked by a thought which should have occurred to him, should have occurred to _someone_ besides the Krogan it had obviously occurred to.

"Spirits…you're making Vorcha psionics, aren't you? Manufacturing them the same way people manufactured fire, or biotic resistant Vorcha. Hit them with fire, they become resistant to fire, rip at their thoughts with a psionic and they become psionic? Can that really work? Someone else surely would have tried it by now if that was the case," his words ran ahead of his brain, as it finally occurred to him that maybe he should not actually have raised this possibility in front of a Combine representative, or the Krogan, if, perhaps, he'd been wrong. "Besides, shouldn't it just render them resistant to psionics, not psionic themselves?"

Wren laughed deep in his throat, "Of course not. That would only be if psionics were used as direct attacks. Repeated **mindfrays** will result in a Vorcha resistant to such attacks, but a Vorcha whose mind is just touched by psionics as a child, they will awaken. At least 39% of the time. It varies radically depending on the psionic who is working with them. It's not a matter of power, it almost seems to be a matter of personality. The most successful was—"

"Sir!" Jane Shepard snapped, her quieter warnings and unsubtle stomp on the Krogan's foot having not stopped the eager flow of words from a scientific mind triggered to discuss what was clearly its favorite topic.

Wren glanced around, "Oh, uh, right, okay. Yes, do disable the defenses and let's get in there and get to work."

"So that's what you've been doing? Raising Vorcha psionics?" John Shepard asked, somewhere between shocked at the banality of it and shocked at the potential impact of it. The critical shortages of Meld that had followed first contact had mostly passed and almost all genetic illnesses had been cured (except in the small populations of Refusers), but continual population expansion and discoveries of additional uses of Meld meant that the substance was more valuable gram-for-gram than element zero.

 ** _Codex: Refusers, Unlocked._**

If the Krogan could actually _create_ Vorcha psionics and those psionics could, like all other psionics be turned into Meld…

Vorcha only lived a couple of decades, tops.

The potential military implications were worrisome, both from the number of psionics the Alliance would be able to field and the alterations they could make to their more elite troops with essentially unlimited Meld. The potential economic effects were destabilizing, but not something Shepard had to worry about.

"Oh, yes, obviously. It's not like it's a secret. I'm quite sure most of your intelligence services know about it," Urdnot Wren. "I suppose they just haven't shared it with you."

"Well, the jammers are off now, if you still want to enter," Garrus put in as he considered whether Wren was telling the truth, mistaken, or messing with them.

"Of course, this should be fun," Wren said, with the cheerfulness of a scientist about to perform an _interesting_ experiment.

This time the door opening involved no pain for anyone, though Shepard refused to turn his back on the Krogan, or his krantt. The Sentinel likewise declined to remain outside, leaving external security in Garrus's hands (with Shalira along to make sure the Combine's interests were seen to) and joined them inside the lab, where work was simultaneously proceeding and paused, depending on the sensitivities and focus of the researchers.

Liara, unsurprisingly was amongst those so focused on their work that she completely ignored the opening door, continuing to focus on reviewing every known Prothean artifact in a fruitless attempt to spark some sort of recognition, or reaction. She'd been at it since they started and didn't appear to be willing to give up until she'd examined every artifact from every recorded angle. In fact, she wasn't willing to give up even then, as she'd been attempting to get permission to actually handle the handful of Prothean artifacts on the Citadel. Shepard had started avoiding her after she began blaming him for the destruction of the other artifacts on Purasi, because 'clearly' the visions were the mental imprint of a Prothean who'd lived there and _those_ artifacts would have triggered something.

Most of the other researchers were attempting to trigger things by other means. Several were sitting around, blindfolded, listening to endless streams of all known sounds in all known languages, hoping to stumble over something that would sound the same as some Prothean word and trigger a reaction, a cascade of memories, as most of them believed could be triggered. Others were trying views of Purasi, one was trying various scents. An Elcor was trying dozens of different foodstuffs. In a corner of the room a quartet of Asari and a Turian were sitting in various poses, meditating. The Turian psionic Benezia had coopted was sitting in the corner playing a game which flashed and beeped, as he did not care about Prothean bullshit and was just there because he had secrets in his head and because Benezia paid for his time. And everywhere, a bunch of people were staring with various degrees of confusion and hostility at the Krogan and his krantt.

In turn, the Alliance personnel turned on Shepard, "You've shared this vision widely, I see," Wren said.

"Many brains make light work," Shepard said with a smirk.

"How's it going?"

"You'd have to ask someone with clearance to do more than stand outside the door and make sure no one sneaks in."

"Ah, the joys of working for a big bloated bureaucracy," Jane put in with a smirk of her own.

John's eyes flicked over to her, then dismissed her without making any of the many, many responses which occurred to him. "Our psionic will be here in a moment, you're authorized to use yours to transfer the information from me. I recommend you accept it from one of the others, or let our psionic do it as the," he couldn't resist, "bloated bureaucracy mandates certain protections for my mind, which may give _your_ psionic some problems."

"So long as my psionic can observe, it's fine," Wren said, in the determinedly calm tones of someone who was going to keep the peace, regardless of what provocations were tossed at him. Coming from a Krogan, to two Humans it was…unusual.

"Tali, whenever you're ready," Shepard said to the air. Before anyone could ask any questions, Tali slid into position. Like most psionics she did end up going hands on, one on the back of Shepard's neck, the other on Wren's cheek, just under his, still-soft bone plate. Then again, most psionics would have had to have their subjects remove their Mind Shields. She didn't.

A moment later, Wren was collapsing backwards towards the floor, his krantt watching with some concern and some amusement. None of them bothered to catch him. A fall from that height could not possibly injure a Krogan and none of them wanted to be restrained by hefting five hundred pounds of Krogan.

"That was supposed to happen, right?" Jane asked, while Drack was laughing at the fallen Krogan.

"Yes. You should have seen what happened with Kortin," Tali jerked her head towards the Elcor standing selecting from the various flavor palettes in front of him.

Jane nodded. Then her eyes flicked over to John. "So, you're a Shepard too? Any relation?"

"Assuming you are descended from one of the Shepards who betrayed the Combine to run off with Urdnot Wrex and be space pirates, yes," Shepard said, doing his best to keep his tone completely factual.

"Yep. Grandmama was a senior X-Com field officer," Jane said cheerfully.

John just stared right through her in response.

Jane stared right back, though at him, not through him.

Tension began to rise, but fortunately Wren began to wake up (a _lot_ faster than any of the non-Krogan, non-Elcor had) with muttering groans and twitches which would have been amusing if anyone had been watching him rather than the pair of Shepards. Drack was in fact watching everything, the benefit of having such widely spread eyes and did indeed find it amusing; Wrecker wasn't watching anything except Tali and that was mostly in minor panic at the very idea of being ordered to attempt to oppose the other psionic.

Drack offered him a hand and yanked the smaller Krogan to his feet in a single smooth motion, which just coincidentally gave Wren a clear shot to pull loose Drack's assault rifle and open up on the throng, if he chose to.

He did not.

"Wrecker?" he asked when he could stand without assistance, even if it was a leaning, shuffle where the room was slowly revolving around him.

"I can't swear to it, but it appeared to be pulled out and dumped in without alteration. She is a _lot_ more powerful than I am though. It would not be beyond her capabilities to deceive me."

There was a brief pause as everyone who wasn't a member of Wren's krantt took a moment to recover from that speech and recognize that this Vorcha was not going to speak in pidgin, even if his voice did have the same raspy growl of other Vorcha.

"But then again, with her power, she could just make you see whatever we want to see," Wren said, with half-a-glower at the Quarian.

Tali didn't wilt under the glare. "The usual response to that is that, if so, you would not even suspect it, so your suspicion is itself proof of my innocence. However the very popularity of that argument renders it self-defeating. As I obviously would leave you your suspicion, as any lack thereof would be inherently suspicious."

"Which is why we leave psionic stuff to the psionics—" John began.

"And Psionic Security," Tali interrupted with just a hint of bitterness at the mention of the force responsible for policing psionics.

 ** _Codex: Psionic Security, Unlocked._**

"And get on with our business," Shepard concluded with an unsubtle shooing gesture at the Alliance team.

"We'll talk soon," Jane said with a smirk at the other human.

"I doubt it."

"Don't."

 **XXXXX**

 ** _Codex: Jartar:_**

 _Jartar was a world bordering Hegemony space, which reportedly once contained the remains of a massive living starship known as the Leviathan of Dis. The Salarian team which discovered the ship were killed to the last by a Hegemony SIU strike team, which snatched up as much of the Leviathan as they could carry off. Though the theft was successful, the Salarian team sent word back to the Salarian Union, before they were killed. The political fallout from that incident was swallowed by the Combine-Hegemony conflict, though it may well have been a factor in the Union's decision not to object to the Combine's actions._

 _The Union was still embarrassed and so, with Hegemony forces routed and the Combine forces overextended, despite their victory, the Salarian Union claimed the Dis System as a protected system and began an intensive research project studying the remaining pieces and seeking more information regarding the Leviathan._

 _The Union provided some evidence that the Leviathan was not Prothean technology and the rest of the Council backed off their demands that the remnants be turned over. Jartar has remained off limits to all civilian traffic and closed to all other militaries ever since. It has, therefore become the holy grail of conspiracy theorists and is a destination for kooks, cranks and spies from all over the known galaxy. Reportedly the Shadow Broker has lost more than twenty-six agents attempting to infiltrate Jartar in the last forty years and other efforts have reportedly been made._

 _The current official consensus of all non-Union governments is that there's nothing of interest to them on Jartar and anyone who thinks otherwise has been baited into wasting time, energy and money pursuing a difficult target which contains nothing of value. The truth is unknown._

 ** _Codex: Watchers:_**

 _The Watchers are the Hierarchy's main psionic force. Though Turians have a relatively low percentage of psionics, when compared to Humans, or even Quarians and lack the absurd power of most Quarian psionics, their large population means that they still possess the second largest total number of psionics. This is especially true as a surprisingly high percentage of Volus demonstrate some psionic ability. In fact, there are rather more Turian psionics than there are Turian biotics, resulting in a debate over whether psionics should be segregated in separate units like the biotic Cabals, or integrated into line regiments._

 _In the end, the Hierarchy chose to treat them like most other specialists, with the vast majority being attached to line regiments, with only the strongest and best being assigned to more dedicated psionic units. The equivalent of the 26th Armiger Legion's Havoc soldiers, or Ghost infiltrators, Watchers are generally deployed to counteract enemy psionics, in support of criminal investigations, or to assist in infiltration missions. Though most intelligence services snap up psionics, Turian Intelligence's low status puts it last in line for recruiting serious psionics, let alone those who'd qualify as Watchers._

 ** _Codex: Refusers:_**

 _The term Refusers originally referred to Quarians who refused the Meld treatments that would free them from their suits, mostly for political/religious reasons (as it was argued that such treatments reduced the need to reclaim Rannoch) and Humans who refused Meld treatments to treat genetic illnesses, mostly for religious/political reasons (either concern about the effect of altering the body on the soul, concern about injecting bits of corpses into themselves, or distrust of the source of Meld). These two groups worked together quite effectively on that one issue, ensuring that despite some pressure, especially regarding treatment of children, there was no legal problem with refusing Meld treatments, even for their children. This was helped along by how expensive and in-demand Meld was._

 _Since contact between the Citadel and the Combine was opened and Citadel scientists began studying Meld, there have been numerous groups who had scientific, religious, political, ethical, legal, or economic objections to Meld. These groups are colloquially known as Refusers, despite having no connection to the original group._

 _The original, political meaning of the name has mostly died out, following their legal victory inside the Combine. However several groups still proudly refer to themselves as Refusers. Indeed, at this point Refusers generally spend more time arguing amongst themselves about what is required to truly be a Refuser (Must all forms of Meld treatments be refused, or only those originating from Humans? Quarians? Humans and Quarians? Okay, then, must all genetic treatments be refused, or merely Meld treatments? What about other forms of medical intervention? Etc.) than dealing with those who do not bear that label._

 ** _Codex: Psionic Security:_**

 _Psionic Security is the branch of Combine Security charged with the regulation and protection of psionics. For the most part this is handled by low level administrative officers, who investigate claims of discrimination against psionics, or fraud by psionics. The main thing that makes them different from any other Combine Security officer is the requirement for anti-psionic conditioning and anti-control implants. The former, along with the Mind Shield results in most psionics not being able to interfere with them. The latter ensures that if a psionic does make it through those defenses, they Security officer will not be of any use, as they'll be too busy being unconscious._

 _The combination of the unpleasantness of the conditioning and the brain surgery required for the implants, along with the fact that Psionic Security isn't paid any more than non-Psionic Security makes recruiting a constant problem. However, in recent years, recruitment has increased following the creation of a holo-series about the work of an elite task force of Psionic Security officers (and the inevitable hot Asari biotic)._

 **Author's Note: Reviews/comments are always welcome, if my prolonged absence hasn't chased everyone off.**


End file.
